A surprising phenomenon has appeared in South Korea: websites that let you shop without buying anything. You choose a product, place a fictitious order, but you pay nothing and obviously receive nothing. The pleasure lies solely in choosing and clicking. These platforms have been dubbed “dopamine sites”. But does dopamine really explain their success?
The word is nowadays used in all kinds of contexts, often associated with “addiction”. Yet the essence probably lies elsewhere: in the way the relationship between an action and the satisfaction it brings is organised.
Some of our activities reward us only after a certain time: learning to play an instrument, growing a garden, planning a trip or building a relationship. Others provide almost instant satisfaction. This is notably the case with social networks: a movement of the finger is enough to make a new image, video or piece of information appear. Sometimes we like it, sometimes not. And it is precisely this uncertainty that pushes us to start again.
The American psychologist B. F. Skinner demonstrated this mechanism with pigeons. When they were systematically given food after pressing a lever, they stopped once they were full. But when the reward became unpredictable, they kept pressing. Gambling works on this principle, and social networks exploit it too: a very simple action, endlessly repeatable, associated with a quick but uncertain reward.
Fake shopping sites nevertheless introduce something different. When we really buy an object online, two satisfactions follow one another. The first occurs at the moment we stop hesitating and click “buy”. The second comes later, when we receive the object.
Fake sites remove this second step. All that remains is the pleasure of putting an end to hesitation. “Do I buy it or not?” becomes, in a way: “Do I click to stop wondering whether I will buy it?” The longer the desire has been nurtured, the longer the hesitation has lasted, and the more intense the relief can be at the moment of the click.
The phenomenon is not entirely new, either. Twenty-five years ago I had already observed comparable behaviour on auction sites: some people would follow with passion an item far too expensive for them, imagine that they could acquire it, then feel real relief when another bidder won it. The dream became impossible and the hesitation ceased.
Even film photography relied in part on this mechanism. In the days when each roll of film allowed only a small number of photos, pressing the shutter was a decision. Should the photo be taken now? Wait a little longer? The pleasure of the click ended this small tension.
“Dopamine sites” have systematised this mechanism by removing any material consequence. They give rise to desire, sustain the imagining of possession, then allow it to end with a simple click, without spending anything and without delivery.
Should we be worried? Not necessarily in itself. A large part of our pleasures rests on an expectation followed by its resolution. The problem begins when platforms systematically organise our attention around micro-desires, micro-expectations and micro-satisfactions with no real consequence.
For our attention is not inexhaustible. The more we devote it to these small artificial stakes, the less is available for other concerns, notably collective ones. In this sense, these devices can have a political dimension: they occupy us with inconsequential stakes and can help to distract us from common affairs.
But they also have a very concrete economic interest. Even when we buy nothing, our choices have value. What we look at, what makes us hesitate and what we finally click on says something about our desires. This data can then be used to offer us products that better match our wishes — and, this time, our budget.
Ultimately, behind the apparently innocent pleasure of the click, the question may be not so much whether we are “addicted to dopamine” as understanding who organises our desires, captures our attention and learns to know our wants.
