The reason you keep opening Instagram #shorts

What we find is that habit forming products, they don't just give people what they want, they add an element of variability, a bit of mystery. You know, let's take our Instagram example. There's uncertainty, there's mystery about what you might find when you open the app and start scrolling. When you think about the news, why do we have people who are news junkies? The news is not about informing you about what's most important. No, it's about informing you about what's most sensational. What makes a movie fun to watch, what makes a book interesting to read, what makes gambling so habit forming, if not all that addictive. You pull on that slot machine. There's uncertainty around what you might win when you play one of these games of chance. So a variable reward is at the heart of these habit forming products.