Its the combination of infinite scroll and algorithmic curation of audiovisual media, that is addictive. Its equivalent to a TV channel tailored just for your interests, and TV was considered very addictive in the past.
I wrote an infinite-scroll implementation for my blog. Infinite scrolling through a static bank of content (even with some randomized elements) is not engaging. You eventually make it to the bottom and think "that's it?"
There are other types of Internet communities where people can connect with each other, that do not involve infinite scrolling, algorithmic curation, and using your collected interests for targeted advertising. I would love to see regulation, just to see the value of Meta's user-profiling-data-assets shrink.
Brainstorming here, hear me out: after 2 pages or 3 minutes of infinite scrolling the only content that shows up is various forms of goatse. We could make a browser extension for this.