Thanks to our ability to rapidly adapt, even the most pleasurable experience or purchase quickly becomes the boring new normal. Soon we’re itching for another quick fix of pleasure. No longer satisfied with what we already have, we treat our withdrawal pains by incrementally upping the dosage. More shoes, more booze, more sex, more food, more “likes,” just more. This phenomenon is known as hedonic adaptation. Exploiting what Sean Parker, founding member of Facebook, called this “vulnerability in human psychology” is the bread and butter of our economy.30 Notice how much advertising focuses not
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