Axios AM: Mike's Top 10 — Media addiction — Trump's worst bet? — Words of the year

1 big thing: The social media addiction bubble | Monday, November 30, 2020

Open in app View in browser   Presented By JPMorgan Chase & Co.   Axios AM By Mike Allen ·Nov 30, 2020 🍗 Happy Monday, and welcome back. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,175 words ... 4½ minutes. 💻 We hope you'll join us tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET for a World AIDS Day and Giving Tuesday virtual event, featuring Every Mother Counts founder Christy Turlington Burns ... ONE Campaign president and CEO Gayle Smith ... and Yoram Siame of the Churches Health Association of Zambia. Register here.      1 big thing: The social media addiction bubble Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios   Everyone from Senate leaders to the makers of Netflix's popular "Social Dilemma" is promoting the idea that Facebook is addictive, managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes from the Bay Area. Humans have raised fears about the addictive nature of every new medium since the 18th century brought us the novel. Yet we've always seemed to recover our balance once the initial infatuation wears off. The September debut of "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix sounded this alarm for millions of viewers. The documentary centers on Tristan Harris, the former Google engineer who has been leading the assault on social media as co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. Harris started talking about smartphones as "slot machines" years ago: "Every time I check my phone, I'm playing the slot machine to see, 'What did I get?' This is one way to hijack people's minds, to form a habit." At a Nov. 17 hearing to grill Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham borrowed Harris' "slot machine" language. The big picture: "Internet addiction" follows previous alarms over video game addiction, TV addiction, comic book addiction and so on. "Social media is a drug" is the latest version of "TV is a drug," which was an update of "rock music is a drug," and so on. Facebook largely rejects claims that its service addicts users by design. In a Facebook document rebutting "The Social Dilemma," the company argues: "Facebook builds its products to create value, not to be addictive." "We certainly do not want our products to be addictive," Zuckerberg told Graham at the Senate hearing. "We want people to use them because they're meaningful." Our thought bubble: Addictions typically are driven by an effort to numb pain or escape boredom. Solutions need to address demand for the addiction, not just the supply. People with fulfilling jobs, healthy families and nourishing cultures are a lot less likely to get addicted to Facebook or anything else. Share this story.     2. Biden comms, econ teams make history Graphic: Biden-Harris Presidential Transition via Twitter President-elect Biden, who had women as campaign manager and top strategist, yesterday named an all-female senior communications staff, and has settled on a diverse economic team after unveiling historic choices for national security. Why it matters: Biden — whose longest serving aides are mostly older white guys — is balancing his initial comfort-food picks for the West Wing with diverse slates for Cabinet and communications. The White House press secretary will be Jen Psaki, who was traveling press secretary during the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008, then became State Department spokesperson and later White House communications director. Biden said in a statement: "I am proud to announce today the first senior White House communications team comprised entirely of women." See bios of the team. Screenshot from CNN Axios' Hans Nichols reports that in addition to former Fed chair Janet Yellen, who'd be the first female Treasury secretary, Biden plans to announce: Labor economist Cecilia Rouse, dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers — the first woman of color to hold the job. Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, to head the Office of Management and Budget — the first woman of color to hold that job. Brian Deese of BlackRock, who worked on the auto industry bailout and Paris climate agreement for President Obama, as economic adviser. ⚡ Starting tonight, Sneak Peek goes daily, hitting your inbox Sunday through Thursday with our latest transition scoops and insight. Sign up here.     3. Data du jour: San Francisco rents plummet Graphic: San Francisco Chronicle via Twitter San Francisco's apartment vacancy rate has more than doubled since last year as tenants desert the market, which had some of the world's most expensive housing before people scattered during the pandemic, the S.F. Chronicle reports (subscription). Why it matters: "Not only do renters suddenly have more options, but the spike in supply has caused prices to plummet and put them in a rare position of power in the historically competitive market."     A message from JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPMorgan Chase commits new $30 billion to advance racial equity     JPMorgan Chase makes additional commitments to address the racial wealth divide and reduce systemic racism, focusing on: Expanding affordable housing and homeownership. Growing minority-owned businesses. Improving financial health. Building a more diverse and inclusive workforce.     4. Pic du jour: Old and new Photo: Erin Scott/Reuters Workers build an inauguration-parade viewing stand in front of the White House, where Black Lives Matter signs adorn new security fences.     5. 💰 Airbnb, DoorDash eye-popping valuations In higher-than-expected valuation aims for their IPOs, "Airbnb plans to target a range of around $30 billion to $33 billion, while DoorDash will seek a valuation of around $25 billion to $28 billion," The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription). Go deeper: Dan Primack's "The unicorn stampede."     6. Fauci warning: "Surge superimposed upon surge" Photo: NBC News "Meet the Press" Anthony Fauci told Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press": "[W]e expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, that we might see a surge superimposed upon that surge that we're already in." Today at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET, Mark Zuckerberg will interview Fauci live on Facebook, discussing "progress towards a Covid vaccine and how we can slow the spread of the virus this holiday season." Post questions for Fauci here.     7. 🧀 Trump's bad bet CNN's Kaitlan Collins (left) was among President Trump's questioners Thursday. Photo: Erin Scott/Reuters   There have been lots of apparent codas to President Trump's years in power, including his tiny table (above) for meeting the press on Thanksgiving. But this might take the cake: In Wisconsin, Joe Biden gained 87 votes yesterday in a recount that Trump's campaign paid $3 million to fund.     8. 🇮🇷 Iranian assassinated by remote control Via Twitter The head of Iran's national security council says the assassination of a top nuclear scientist was done with electronic means and by remote control, without the involvement of hitmen on the ground, Axios' Barak Ravid tweets.     9. Words of the year Photo: Jenny Kane/AP   In addition to "pandemic" as 2020 word of the year, Merriam-Webster named these runners-up: quarantine, asymptomatic, mamba, kraken, defund, antebellum, irregardless, icon, schadenfreude and malarkey, AP reports. Mamba had a spike in online lookups after the January death of Kobe Bryant, whose nickname was the Black Mamba. A mass of lookups occurred for kraken in July after Seattle's new National Hockey League franchise chose the mythical sea monster as its name, urged along by fans. Country group Lady Antebellum's name change to Lady A drove dictionary interest in June, while malarkey got a boost from President-elect Biden. Icon was front and center in headlines after the deaths of U.S. Rep. John Lewis and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.     10. NFL season is teetering Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   COVID wreaked havoc on the league over the holiday weekend, with just five weeks left before the playoffs, Jeff Tracy writes in Axios Sports: Broncos QB search: After Denver's entire quarterback depth chart was wiped out by contact tracing, it was forced to turn to rookie WR Kendall Hinton, who's spent the whole year on the practice squad and hasn't played QB since 2018 at Wake Forest. The Broncos lost to the Saints, 31-3. Homeless 49ers: When Santa Clara County bolstered its COVID-19 protocols to ban contact sports, the Niners — with home games the next two weeks — were left searching for a new stadium. Current frontrunner? Arizona. Tuesday night football: The Ravens are experiencing a full-on outbreak, which pushed Thursday night's game against the Steelers to Sunday, then to Tuesday. As of last night, 23 Ravens were on the COVID-19 list, while a handful of Steelers have begun landing there as well. The NFL is considering "playoff bubbles" for the 14 or 16 teams that make the playoffs — "isolating all personnel in hotels except to go to and from the team facility and strictly enforcing limitations on who is permitted inside to interact with players, coaches or support staff," the league's NFL.com reports.     A message from JPMorgan Chase & Co. The path to a more diverse and inclusive company     JPMorgan Chase has committed to building a more equitable and representative workforce, and supporting solutions to advance racial equity in the workforce. A few examples: Recruiting top talent from HBCUs, and preparing employees for the future of work Learn about this commitment.   📬 Thanks for starting your week with us. Please invite your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. 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