A lot of attention has been given to WhatsApp’s privacy changes.

But the most insidious features from these companies are non-obvious but right in front of our faces.

At almost any social media company, the primary goal is to get you to use the product more.

Twitter -> scroll more
TikTok -> watch more
Clubhouse -> listen more

This means otherwise very nice, otherwise very sincere people at these companies end up designing and building dangerously addicting products that play on the diseases of your heart and suck your time.

Take the notifications feed. Notifications take advantage of natural diseases of our hearts. they train your heart to blacken and darken with every notification.

Is it really necessary to tell you every single time you get a like, a reply, or a retweet? No. But it increases company engagement numbers.

And our hearts jump to acknowledge the notification. The like. The reply.

From Purification of the Heart:

this is the disease called love of praise/acknowledgement. Every time you desire acknowledgement from the created your heart turns away from acknowledgment of the Creator.

Again these companies are not filled with malicious people. Believe me, I worked at one of them. They’re very nice people. But companies are forced to look at the bottom line. And the bottom line is to get more users to come back to the app.

If you don’t believe this kind of thinking goes into the product, skim this book: