The Evening of the Glowing Faces

It was evening, and the ceiling fan above was doing its best impression of a lazy government clerk — making the rounds slowly, without much effect. Outside, the faint honking of traffic and the smell of trees drifted in. Inside, something strange had happened to my family.

The room wasn’t lit by the warm glow of our tube-light but by five separate, cold, bluish glows. My mother, in her faded maroon shawl, was leaning forward as though her phone might whisper a secret. She was deep into a playlist of true-crime videos. Every few minutes her eyebrows would rise, her mouth would make a small “O,” and she’d mutter things like, “Ayyo, how can people be so cruel!” The “Next Video” button was her accomplice.

My father, across from her, was leaning dangerously back in his cushioned chair, scrolling through his WhatsApp groups — the “Family Group” for gossip, the “School Friends” group for bad jokes, and the “Layout Club” group for political and old office debates that ended in emojis. Occasionally he would burst into a chuckle, read/taunt out a headline about a politician falling into a drain, and then shake his head as though the country had truly gone to the dogs.

In the corner, my son sat on his study table not quite studying but his iPad tilted at just the right angle. He was piloting a Boeing 747 on a flight simulator, adjusting altitude with more care than he used to give his homework. “Perfect landing!” he announced, though the passengers on board were imaginary. The game rewarded him with golden badges and unlockable liveries for his virtual plane — and he beamed like he had just been promoted at an actual airline.

My daughter was next to him but in a completely different universe. On her phone, she was dressing a digital avatar — layering skirts over jeans, adding butterfly wings, changing hairstyles every 20 seconds. Her digital wardrobe was bigger than her real one, and cheaper too — or so she thought, until I checked my credit card bill for “Gem Pack” purchases.

On the sofa opposite me sat my wife, scrolling through Instagram — but not for cat videos or recipes. She was deep in an endless stream of typography experiments, old calligraphy archives, and logo redesign case studies. A post about Bauhaus letterforms made her pause, zoom in, and mutter about “the kerning being all wrong.” Even her “fun” feed had turned into a curated design museum — and she couldn’t stop.

And me? I sat there pretending to read news, but I was really checking Instagram for the third time in an hour. Not to see anything specific — but because you never know what you might see next.

The Moment of Curiosity

It occurred to me: What strange spell is this? My mother never sat through one full news broadcast without muttering about bias. Yet here she was, sitting through 20 crime videos in a row, each with a cliffhanger.

My father, who used to read The Hindu front to back, now believed in breaking news only if it came with a “forwarded many times” warning. My children, who once used to run around in the park, were travelling the world virtually or shopping for pixelated jackets. My wife — who used to spend evenings with tracing paper and pens — now collected hundreds of fonts on Pinterest without ever printing a single one.

We weren’t bored. We weren’t even unhappy. But there was something deliberate in how each of us was hooked.

The First Clue — A Man and His Pigeons

My little investigation led me far away — not to Silicon Valley, but to a Harvard basement in the 1930s. There, psychologist B.F. Skinner built a simple box with a lever and a tray. Inside, pigeons pecked the lever. Sometimes, food appeared. Sometimes, nothing.

Skinner found something remarkable: when the reward was random, the pigeons pecked more and faster. They didn’t give up easily, because the next peck could always be “the one.” This was called a Variable Ratio Schedule.

In his notes, Skinner could have written: “Congratulations, I have discovered the secret to slot machines, mobile games, and Instagram reels.” Instead, he simply observed that unpredictable rewards produced the most persistent behavior.

From Pigeons to People — Las Vegas Learns the Trick

By the 1960s, casino owners had perfected the pigeon box for humans. The slot machine became its glamorous, jingling cousin — three reels, a lever, and an unpredictable jackpot. Every spin was a “maybe.” The coins clattering into the tray, the flashing lights, the sound effects — all of it was theatre designed to reinforce the loop.

You didn’t win often, but when you did, the memory stuck. That small win was enough to keep you playing — because, like Skinner’s pigeons, you never knew if the next pull was the one that made you rich.

Arcades, Board Games, and the Arrival of Chance

By the 1970s and 80s, game designers outside casinos started borrowing the same psychology. Arcade classics like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders mixed skill with unpredictability — random enemy patterns, bonus fruit that appeared unexpectedly, and high scores that kept you chasing the next “almost win.”

Even old-fashioned board games had their hooks. Snakes & Ladders made you climb steadily, only to drop you suddenly — and that little “what will the dice say?” moment kept the whole family invested. Monopoly offered the thrill of sudden windfalls (or bankruptcies), while Scrabble gave you the occasional miracle of drawing the perfect letter.

The Digital Shift — 2000s Onwards

When games moved to our computers and then our phones, the science scaled up. Candy Crush offered unpredictable “cascade” wins. Clash of Clans gave you rare loot drops. Facebook delivered likes and comments at odd intervals, not in one big lump, so you’d keep checking.

By 2010, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok had refined it to an art. The infinite scroll was like a slot machine lever that never jammed. You pulled down on your feed, not knowing what would appear next — a puppy video, breaking news, a friend’s story, or for my wife, a perfectly balanced Art Deco monogram. That unpredictability was the point.

And Back to My Living Room — with Skinner Watching

Which brought me right back to my living room that evening. I now saw it not as a cozy family gathering, but as a perfectly functioning laboratory. Each of us was a subject in our own invisible experiment.

My mother’s crime videos? That was variable ratio reinforcement at its purest. The “big reveal” — who did it, why they did it — never came at a fixed time. Sometimes it was in the next clip, sometimes three videos later. The unpredictability kept her hitting “next” like a pigeon pecking for grain.

My father’s WhatsApp feed ran on a mixed schedule. Some forwards were nonsense, others were genuinely funny, and a few confirmed his opinions — which made them extra rewarding. The very fact that the next message could be any of these made him scroll for longer, each ping like the clang of a slot machine.

My son’s flight simulator was a blend of skill reinforcement and surprise. Not every landing brought a medal, but when a rare “perfect approach” badge appeared, his eyes lit up. That occasional recognition was enough to keep him in the cockpit for hours.

My daughter’s avatar fashion store was Skinner’s box wearing a sequin jacket. Some items were available instantly, some only if she checked in daily, and others arrived as rare drops. It wasn’t just shopping — it was gambling disguised as wardrobe management.

My wife? Her Instagram typography feed fed her not just fonts but the thrill of maybe seeing something new and brilliant. Sure, some posts were dreadful kerning crimes, but the hope of finding a rare ligature or a stunning logotype made her scroll deeper.

And me? I refreshed Instagram knowing most notifications were forgettable — but that slim possibility of something flattering or exciting kept my thumb in motion.

Skinner to Silicon Valley — A Short History of Hooking Humans

• 1930s–40s – B.F. Skinner & the BoxPsychologist B.F. Skinner experiments with pigeons and rats. He finds that unpredictable rewards (variable ratio schedules) make animals repeat behaviors far more than predictable ones.Lesson learned: uncertainty is more addictive than certainty.

• 1950s–60s – Slot Machines Perfect the FormulaCasinos apply Skinner’s principle to mechanical slot machines — levers, spinning reels, and rare jackpots keep gamblers hooked.Impact: Gambling moves from occasional entertainment to a science of compulsion.

• 1970s–80s – Arcade Games Join the PartyGames like Pac-Man and Space Invaders combine skill with randomness. Players never know exactly when they’ll beat a high score or unlock a new level.Impact: Kids pump coins endlessly into machines chasing “just one more” win.

• 1990s – Board & Card Game ReinventionDesigners borrow from casino psychology — dice rolls, card draws, rare bonus cards keep players engaged beyond the strategy itself.

• 2000s – The Rise of Mobile & Social GamesTitles like FarmVille and Candy Crush introduce daily rewards, streaks, and rare “super drops.” You don’t always win big, but maybe this next try will be different.

  
  

• 2010s–Present – Algorithmic EngagementSocial media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube apply variable reinforcement at massive scale. Likes, comments, suggested videos — all arrive unpredictably, engineered to trigger the same dopamine patterns Skinner saw in pigeons.

The Ancient Experiment

Somewhere between watching my son land a digital Boeing and my daughter unlock a holographic skirt, I began to feel a strange déjà vu. Not from any psychology textbook, but from the brittle palm-leaf pages of Vedantic thought my grandfather used to read — ideas that were already old when Rome was young.

In Vedanta, they say the mind is bound by maya — the grand illusion that makes shadows look like reality. It doesn’t just hide the truth; it dresses the fake in high resolution and makes you crave it. When my wife leans in, eyes wide at a new font combination, or my father chuckles at yet another WhatsApp meme, I can almost hear maya whispering: “This is important. Stay a little longer.”

Then there is raga–dvesha — the pull towards what gives pleasure, the push away from what doesn’t. My mother swipes past anything happy but lingers on gritty crime dramas. My son resets the simulator instantly if the landing’s rough, chasing only the smooth touchdown. The ancients would simply nod: “Attachment here, aversion there — same rope, two ends.”

And the engine behind it all? Vasana — the deep grooves of habit etched into the mind by past actions. Once carved, they pull us back, again and again, without conscious choice. A like on Instagram, a perfect kerning on a poster, a successful game landing — each reinforces the groove. The river of attention follows its old channels, even when you try to dam it.

In the Katha Upanishad, the mind is a chariot, the senses are wild horses, and the intellect is the charioteer. Without steady hands, the horses bolt — towards crime reels, fashion avatars, cockpit dashboards. Skinner would call it variable reinforcement. Shankara would call it bondage.

And beyond it all, Samsara — the great loop of doing the same thing over and over, mistaking motion for progress. In the lab, the pigeons circle between lever and food tray. In life, we circle between app and notification tray. Ancient India’s diagnosis and 20th-century psychology’s diagnosis are strangely identical; only the metaphors differ.

Back in the Glow

And so my living room, that evening, was really a time capsule of this entire journey — from 1930s psychology labs to 2020s algorithmic feeds.The pigeons are gone, the levers replaced by glass screens.The seed has become a notification. And the experiment? It’s still running — just with better graphics and Wi-Fi.

*I used ChatGPT to polish my ideas and for hostorical deepdive