Twitter, Facebook ‘Designed’ to Exploit Brain Chemistry, ‘The Social Dilemma’ Director Says

Social media powerhouses like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are “designed” to exploit users’ brain chemistry in order to keep them glued to their phones, “The Social Dilemma” director Jeff Orlowski told TheWrap founder Sharon Waxman at TheGrill 2020 on Thursday afternoon. Orlowski, while discussing his new Netflix documentary, said the underlying, sinister truth about the world’s biggest apps is that they’re akin to drugs. “The word addiction gets used in very different ways, and in my mind, that word itself is not the point,” Orlowski said. “The point is, they were designed to get us to come back. It’s to figure out how to reverse-engineer what we’re most vulnerable to, most susceptible to, to come back.