What makes X (formerly twitter) so addictive and potentially harmful to mental health.

When I open X formly twitter, it shows me an exotic post for few seconds, and then page is refreshed and the exotic post disappears it never come to my feed again. What the fuck this is ? A trick to stimulate and mind and then endless scrolling? After passing few minutes I also tend to forget about the exotic post, but when I closed X then it came to my mind.

What I am experiencing is a deliberate design pattern used by X (formerly Twitter) and other social media platforms. Here's what's happening:

This is a form of "teaser content" or "dopamine-triggering" that platforms use to capture your attention and keep me scrolling. The platform algorithmically shows me an attention-grabbing post (what I call "exotic") for just a moment before refreshing my feed. This creates several psychological effects:

1. The "near-miss" effect - I saw something interesting but couldn't fully engage with it, making my brain want to find similar content
2. Creates a "search" mindset - I start scrolling more actively looking for similar content
3. Exploits the Zeigarnik effect - Our brains tend to remember incomplete tasks or interrupted experiences (which is why I remember it when closing the app)

This is absolutely a manipulation tactic designed to increase engagement and time spent on the platform. The brief exposure to stimulating content creates just enough curiosity to keep you scrolling, hoping to see something similar again.

The fact that it disappears and never appears again suggests it might be part of an A/B test to see how users respond to these "teaser" experiences, or it could be a bug in their content delivery system where the post is initially loaded but then filtered out by a second-pass algorithm.

This kind of design pattern is common in social media and is part of what makes these platforms so addictive and potentially harmful to mental health.