Trapped by Choice: How Tech Hijacks Desire and Erodes Real Freedom

Why endless options and engineered craving are quietly unraveling our freedom — and what we can do about it.

The New Fire: Desire as Commodity

Desire once drove us toward love, creation, and meaning.

Today, it drives us toward endless scrolling, swiping, and searching.

Dating apps, pornography, and social media promise freedom and satisfaction.

Instead, they deliver restlessness, fragmentation, and the slow erosion of real connection.

The fire of desire was never extinguished — it was hijacked and sold back to us at a profit.

The Illusion of Endless Freedom

In a Classic psychological study on choice, participants were asked to select a piece of art.

One group could change their selection later: the other group's choice was final.

The surprising result?

Those who could not change their minds were happier., than those who could endlessly change their minds.

They learned to love what they chose.

Commitment fostered love; endless choice fostered regret.

Modern life offers us infinite options — but without a framework, it leaves us paralyzed.

In the absence of limits, freedom collapses into chaos.

The human soul wasn’t built for endless novelty.

It was built for something deeper.

Freedom without limits isn’t

freedom — it’s paralysis.

Brain Hacking and the Business of Addiction

The YouTube documentary The Great Porn Experiment (click here) and a 60 Minutes episode "Brain Hacking" (link) expose how apps deliberately exploit dopamine — the brain’s reward chemical — to create compulsive behavior.

Every notification, swipe, and scroll isn’t random.

It’s designed to hook.

Some would argue that while platforms exploit human weakness, they don’t create it — and that personal responsibility still matters.

Still, when the very structure of attention is weaponized, freedom becomes harder to exercise.

The Tinder Model: Built for Restlessness

During a conversation over dinner, a former Tinder executive made a comment that has stayed with me:

“If two people meet and leave Tinder, that’s two customers lost.”

Though an informal comment, it highlights a structural tension:

Dating apps depend on engagement — on users staying hopeful, restless, and in search mode.

Much like casinos thrive on players staying in the game rather than cashing out, dating apps prosper when users keep swiping — and stay unsatisfied.

Whether intentional or simply a byproduct of engagement capitalism, the incentives are clear:

The longer we search, the better it is for business.

But how do they keep us there?

Intermittent reinforcement. That’s the same mechanism used in slot machines. You never know when the next swipe might deliver a hit—a match, a message, a dopamine surge. And so, you keep pulling the lever.

Infinite scroll. No natural stopping point. No sense of “completion.” Just a frictionless loop of possibilities.

Variable rewards. Some matches are exciting. Some are disappointing. Some are confusing. That unpredictability activates the brain’s reward circuitry far more than predictable outcomes.

Micro-validations. Likes. Notifications. “Someone swiped right on you.” These small pings of attention mimic social affirmation—and quickly become addictive.

Apps don’t need to make us fall in love.They just need to make us stay in the game.

The First Look Is on God: Reclaiming the Fire of Desire

Desire itself isn’t the enemy. But we’ve forgotten how to hold it.

A client preparing for his wedding once came to me, not wracked with shame, but conflicted. He was working out at a gym in Los Angeles—surrounded, as he put it, by “ten thousand distractions in yoga pants.” He loved his fiancée. He had boundaries. But the part of him that noticed never seemed to shut off.

He wasn’t acting on it. But he noticed. And he was trying to figure out how to notice without feeling guilty or dishonest.

“I feel like I’m betraying her—but I’m not. But… you know?” he said.

What he was feeling wasn’t lust. It was being alive. He had eyes. And instincts. And a nervous system. To notice beauty isn’t a ‘sin’. To obsess over it—that’s where we lose our footing.

That’s when I shared something a mentor once told me:

“The first look is on God.

The second is on you.”

Meaning - The first glance? That’s just being human. Its instinct.. It happens before you even know it. It’s what you do next - The second one—the lingering, the leaning in, the mental replay—that’s a choice. that’s where your agency comes in."

The client laughed. “So I get one free look?”

Not free—natural. And the goal isn’t to become numb. It’s to become rooted. You don’t kill desire. You tether it to something deeper.

Even a few years into marriage, that same client still wrestled with attraction. He still noticed. He still had to refocus. The guilt was still there, but it lessened. What changed wasn’t the temptation—it was the story he told about it.

He stopped treating desire like a problem to fix. And started treating it like a force to steward.

The Modern Battle for the Soul

The platforms around us don’t need to force us to surrender.

They only need to keep us distracted — chasing the next possibility, the next thrill, the next “better” match.

Freedom today demands vigilance:

• Awareness.

• Discipline.

• Courage to resist selling our souls one harmless swipe at a time.

Maybe the first act of rebellion is simply to see clearly:

They aren’t selling you freedom — they’re selling you an addiction.

The first look is on God.

The second is on you.

The choice is still ours.

Author Bio:

By Chris Meehan

Chris Meehan is a psychotherapist, writer, and speaker exploring the intersections of identity, desire, and the moder search for meaning.