The former President of the social media giant Facebook says the founders deliberately set out to create a network that would exploit "a vulnerability in human psychology" of its users.

"It's exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology," said Sean Parker, who became a billionaire because of his association with Facebook.  "The inventors, creators - it's me, it's Mark (Zuckerberg), it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people - understood this consciously.  And we did it anyway."

Speaking at an Axios event in Philadelphia earlier this week, the tech executive who had previously invented the file-sharing platform Napster said the whole points of Facebook was to "consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible".  The designers intended users to get a "dopamine hit" for every "like" or other positive interaction, creating a "social validation feedback loop" that encourages them to return and upload more content.  That leads to 1.2 billion monthly active users telling Facebook all sorts of personal information that's valuable to advertisers who pay US$1 Billion per quarter to access those eyed glued on their computer or smartphone screens.

"It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other.  It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways.  God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," Parker said.

"All of us are jacked into this system," he said.  "All of our minds can be hijacked.  Our choices are not as free as we think they are."