The Acceleration of Addictiveness

The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40.

One sense of "normal" is statistically normal: what everyone else does.

The other is the sense we mean when we talk about the normal operating range of a piece of machinery: what works best.

The more things we like will mean more things we have to be careful about. Most people will not be careful about addictiveness, unfortunately. This will result in a new normality, which will define people by what they say no to.

An important thing to note is that we'll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive.