There is a gap between the conditions for a successful social media application by economic models and the model that would be best for well-being. Companies are incentivized to design applications made with the intention of maximizing engagement and time spent on applications rather than enriching the user’s life. 

Due to this gap and the increasing necessity to use digital channels for communication, we are slowly but surely approaching a mental health crisis. Those especially at risk are children and teenagers, who may not even remember a time before the internet. 

The integration of technology with daily life originally caused this problem. At some point along the way, the focus of applications shifted from providing value to the user to keeping the user engaged with the application with stimuli activating dopamine pathways, usually reserved for motivation and rewards when completing tasks. Once the user is hooked by these predatory design techniques, they fall victim to the endless scrolling cycle, interacting with unregulated content that may be positive in some cases, but negative in others. 

The path forward lies in identifying what design features cause this response in users. Research would be done to identify features similar to like buttons and endless scrolling reels to identify what elements have the most potential for prolonged unnecessary engagement. Software can be used to pull data from major social media platforms to correlate these trends, and isolate potentially damaging features. To replace these features, a human-centric approach would be used with the main goal being user health, rather than engagement. 

The life cycle of a software product has gone through many standards to reach the common Scrum method used today. If it is possible to optimize the process for a business sense, then shouldn’t it be possible to optimize governance for addictive features of design?  

The big pitfall with addressing this issue is that this approach may not be as economically viable as designing for maximum user engagement. It is alien to think that bigger companies would support redesigning their most lucrative products to be less profitable. However, framing this initiative as a matter of public health it would make it possible to achieve through legislation, similar to the regulation efforts for the tobacco industry.