Paul Graham has just posted this great read on the acceleration of addictiveness. Essentially the world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago and it’s going to get even more so.

Interestingly he puts this down to technological progress, which in his words means ‘making things do more of what we want’. Which is probably one of the most articulate ways of talking about all this stuff that’s going on in a digital world.

However it’s also this gem of an observation I love;

“What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin and crack have in common is that they are all more concentrated forms of less addictive predcessors….

“Checkers and solitaire have been replaced by World of Warcraft and FarmVille. TV has become more engaging, and even so it can’t compete with Facebook”.

Obviously when technological progress means things doing more of what you want, predecessors such as TV, that don’t evolve quick enough in the right direction, aren’t essentially keeping up with that new demand.

I wonder what ad revenues might look like now if all the TV channels clubbed together, backed web enabled TV and put them in the house of people for free ages ago? They’d probably be more addictive and looking a lot healthier.