The slot-machine resemblance is not a coincidence. The same intermittent-reward schedule that built the world's most profitable casinos is in your pocket, working on the same dopamine receptors, for free.
Each pull-to-refresh is a tiny gamble. Most of the time you get nothing. Occasionally you get something that lights up the part of your brain that used to mark the location of a fruit tree. The system learns. The system insists.
Why willpower is the wrong tool
Trying to out-willpower a feed is like trying to hold your breath until you stop being hungry. The system you're fighting is older than you. The system you're fighting was designed against you. The interventions that work are environmental: phone in another room, app off the home screen, account logged out by default. Friction wins where discipline can't.