Yes, we in fact live in a Brave New “Pushbutton” World, with 1984-like elements. Here is why.
Let’s look at the services we use — the main problem being the instantaneousness of them — there is no longer any delayed gratification, no satisfaction from having to wait to get things. Only thing that remains is artificial stimulation — everything has a psychological equivalent of sugar in it and you are able to get it right this moment. We wanted to attain happiness so much that we forgot that it is inside us and have mistaken it for the little ego driven emotional peaks that the sugary bits of dopaminergic satisfaction provide us.
Facebook is a prime example of all of this. It being written with the goal of psychological manipulation right off the bat makes it the most prominent of all of the sociological threats we face today. Former Facebook Vice President even spoke out about his guilt from having built Facebook this way — they’ve never meant to create this monster, as he himself says:
I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works: no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.