Tech companies are ruled by a profit model that captures our eyeballs and triggers our insatiable checking for likes and approvals that make us hungry for validation. Current photo apps have set off a trend of perpetuating unattainable lifestyle and beauty standards that have engendered social media envy. But brothers Alex and Austen Ma, who graduated from UCLA and founded audio-based social network TTYL, were not lovin’ it.
A close-up of the new ‘anti-selfie’ Poparazzi app and the future of the digital photo-sharing landscape
Like fast food, social media is designed to lure us into gluttony. Nothing fires up our brain’s reward circuitry as satisfyingly as an infinite scroll of food pictures and celebrity posts preaching positivity. In the same way McDonald’s hypes up its BTS meal by dressing up regular McNuggets with new dipping sauces, social media keeps us hooked by constantly rolling out digital upgrades such as photo apps with augmented reality filters or nifty video editors to create montages of our dancing cat.
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