Internet Desire

I have been on a bit of an ‘extended rant’ lately about the internet…. how it is not useful to me, how SEO sites suck, and so on. And then I came across this post about manufacturing desire on the internet. 

As I read it – it dawned on me that large amounts of the internet were now focussed on establishing this ‘desire engine’ to generate clicks and pageviews and ‘minutes spent on-line’. The ‘dopamine rush’ helps explain the hours and hours of my life wasted on the internet.

I started to think of other ‘engine of desire’ based industries. You may argue that at some level all consumer industries do this. Apple creates huge amounts of desire for its products, exclusive fashion brands can (so I am told) create great desire for their products. However the consumer pricing makes these industries somewhat supply limited. Apple products and exclusive fashion items cost hundreds of dollars, and their ‘exclusivity’ helps add to the desire.

However there are other industries, that are built on tapping into this ‘engine of desire’ for which supply is not limited. Poker machines at $1 a go are a ‘classic’ example. The desire engine as described in essentially creating addictive behaviours and these examples can be extended to other industries based on addiction where supply exceeds demand…. smoking, alcohol, fast foods to name a few

And then it struck me that all of the examples have extensive public policies designed to support consumers in managing and limiting their behaviours. From labelling the fat and sugar content of foods, to public education programs, to ‘supply limits’ on cigarettes and alcohol (taxes and point of sale restrictions).

Yet the internet has an almost infinite supply of sites either deliberately or inadvertently designed to trigger dopamine-rushes and addictive behaviours? Can we really expect people to place effective limits on these tactics through sheer will-power alone?