I’m not sure what kind of background you have. Sure that movie is complex things ‘dumbed down’. It’s a movie.
What’s the difference between your “pursuing engagement” and my “get people addicted”. Fact is they carefully design apps to make them engaging. Play a tiktok video just in the right moment to keep you scrolling. sometimes even videos you dislike to invoke feelings. invent karma to keep you invested in your account. fine tune gameification to give rewards to your brain in exactly the right moments to keep you either engaged or buy in-game currency.
There’s a lot of dumb people.
And lots of the psychological tricks and methods are designed to be subtle enough to go unnoticed and not interfere.