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For sugar, we've started the phase of awareness of its harmfulness, and no doubt our children or grandchildren will have social norms not to abuse it. But for

by euyyn 9y ago

For sugar, we've started the phase of awareness of its harmfulness, and no doubt our children or grandchildren will have social norms not to abuse it. But for the internet it's much more difficult: I don't think the habit of avoidance can be born without first general awareness of its danger. And the danger in all other substances Paul mentions is a physical one: you get terminally ill, or visibly unhealthy. But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Moreover, not buying a pack of cigarettes is trivially easy for someone that's not addicted yet. As is not getting drunk every day. But distinguishing the addictive internet from the non-addictive is hard, and avoiding the former while still using the latter is even harder. What shape can a social habit of avoidance take here?

DelightOne 9y ago
A solution might be to identify what you need it for and build a process around it which pushes you to do what you are here for in the first place. You wouldnt start to bake a cake by buying meat, right? Theres currently no process in place for anything, but only lots of information and people trying to get you addicted to spend money and time(depending on you product or customer) on things you do not require.
- Super_Jambo 9y ago
  Yup, the problem is our markets are wildly broken because of advertising. If you had to actually pay for the content you consume you wouldn't have any of this. But corporations are allowed to pay a third party to build honey pots in order to poison your mind against you. The worst part of it is that it makes finding actually useful information almost impossible because there is such huge incentives to make superficially attractive information that's actually dross. And people wonder why the foolish poor took on too much housing debt or why you had Trump running against Clinton. "This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - DelightOne 9y ago
    I agree partly, see my answer below. > But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother. However lamenting about this does not help anyone. Everyone has his own incentives.
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    > But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother. No, we're only sucking the brightest of the "path of least resistance" minds into Google and Wall Street. Plenty bright minds to go about, and many have ideas of their own.
    - Piskvorrr 9y ago
      Correct, but let me quote a surprisingly on-topic verse: "wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it." This seems to be quite fitting - most people are on the path of least resistance, brightness notwithstanding.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >people trying to get you addicted to spend money and time(depending on you product or customer) on things you do not require. // Almost as if the fundamental conflicts built in to capitalism are harmful to us as a species -- who'd have thought treating life as a competition would lead to so many of us losing.
  - DelightOne 9y ago
    > Almost as if the fundamental conflicts built in to capitalism are harmful to us as a species -- who'd have thought treating life as a competition would lead to so many of us losing. I think competition was always there. My point is people selling things get smarter. So it may be a good idea to improve my arsenal too to withstand the forces that be and use what is out there.
    - Super_Jambo 9y ago
      I don't think this is an arms race you can win. Even if you personally make good decisions if the market for good products is not big enough the addictive products will be all that's available.
      - DelightOne 9y ago
        > Even if you personally make good decisions if the market for good products is not big enough the addictive products will be all that's available. Nothing is all good and nothing is all bad, but rather allˋs a shade of grey. My way of solving the addiction Problem is to get rid of the dark stuff by putting a box on all shady and only letting it through in a controlled manner so only light comes out at the end. The box is like a teacher, assisting and guiding. Not limiting but supporting with anything I want done. I am unable to find a better metaphore.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    Existence itself is a competition. "Survival of the fittest" implies that some level of fitness is required to survive. Few macroscopic organisms can go more than a few days without consuming some other thing that was living not long ago, whether plant or animal. Capitalism creates a realistic incentive structure within the constraints of the real world, including the constraints of the biological systems that undergird human and animal life. It has problems, but by this point, it's well-proven that living under dictatorial fiat disguised as utopian mythology is far worse.
reader5000 9y ago
> But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold jobs, failure to reach traditional milestones (marriage, own house, children, etc.).
- fhood 9y ago
  Funny how the the symptoms of so many addictions boil down to this.
- terminalcommand 9y ago
  I also think that internet addiction is visible. When you submerse yourself into the digital world, you don't take care of your health, your physical appearance. I guess internet addiction varies in its severance. I have a friend from high school, he was the smartest kid in class, was a math-genius. Somehow he lost interest in school. He has a Youtube channel, where he posts game videos, earns a bit money from there (i guess 500 dollars per month). He is "trying" to study economics, but he is still in the same semester after three years. He does lead a life, but not in the physical world. He was a handsome kid, now he doesn't eat and doesn't care about appearances. He only drinks iced tea (no water) and eats limited food he likes (like pasta or chocolate). Although his life may seem weird, I respect him. That's his choice to live in the digital world.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    The very nature of addiction is that he's not completely free to make the choice, though.
    - terminalcommand 9y ago
      The question is, is it really an addiction? Can we specify it as a lifestyle choice? The individual in question thinks, has goals, becomes sad, happy and most importantly his intelligence is intact. He is not like an advanced heroine addict playing the same tape over and over again.
bdamm 9y ago
Overeaters Anonymous and Sex Addicts Anonymous are two organizations that have been grappling with this, successfully, for some time. Especially in the Overeaters Anonymous case, it's obvious that you can't stop eating, and must therefore must define some boundary between healthy eating and compulsive gluttony. I suspect many "Internet Addicts" likely already have an idea of what level of use is unhealthy, so that's a reasonable basis for an individual to begin with. Defining a metric for society at large will be much harder.
- euyyn 9y ago
  Good point. The case of over-eating does have the physically-visible effects, but sex addiction has not, so it's a very close situation.
- tbabb 9y ago
  For the internet, there are some tools for this. I find it very helpful to decide ahead of time how many minutes a day it's acceptable to waste on "addictive" internet sites, and then use extensions (StayFocused for Chrome is very good) to block them after that amount of accumulated time has passed. Helps by taking away some of the need to exercise pure willpower, without completely excluding entire parts of the internet from you.
  - waterlink 9y ago
    That is an amazing approach. Thank you! I'll try the plugin.

by euyyn 9y ago

DelightOne 9y ago

A solution might be to identify what you need it for and build a process around it which pushes you to do what you are here for in the first place. You wouldnt start to bake a cake by buying meat, right? Theres currently no process in place for anything, but only lots of information and people trying to get you addicted to spend money and time(depending on you product or customer) on things you do not require.

Super_Jambo 9y ago
Yup, the problem is our markets are wildly broken because of advertising. If you had to actually pay for the content you consume you wouldn't have any of this. But corporations are allowed to pay a third party to build honey pots in order to poison your mind against you. The worst part of it is that it makes finding actually useful information almost impossible because there is such huge incentives to make superficially attractive information that's actually dross. And people wonder why the foolish poor took on too much housing debt or why you had Trump running against Clinton. "This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- DelightOne 9y ago
  I agree partly, see my answer below. > But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother. However lamenting about this does not help anyone. Everyone has his own incentives.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  > But I'm sure sucking all our brightest minds into Google and Wall Street we'll innovate our way past global warming no bother. No, we're only sucking the brightest of the "path of least resistance" minds into Google and Wall Street. Plenty bright minds to go about, and many have ideas of their own.
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    Correct, but let me quote a surprisingly on-topic verse: "wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it." This seems to be quite fitting - most people are on the path of least resistance, brightness notwithstanding.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>people trying to get you addicted to spend money and time(depending on you product or customer) on things you do not require. // Almost as if the fundamental conflicts built in to capitalism are harmful to us as a species -- who'd have thought treating life as a competition would lead to so many of us losing.
- DelightOne 9y ago
  > Almost as if the fundamental conflicts built in to capitalism are harmful to us as a species -- who'd have thought treating life as a competition would lead to so many of us losing. I think competition was always there. My point is people selling things get smarter. So it may be a good idea to improve my arsenal too to withstand the forces that be and use what is out there.
  - Super_Jambo 9y ago
    I don't think this is an arms race you can win. Even if you personally make good decisions if the market for good products is not big enough the addictive products will be all that's available.
    - DelightOne 9y ago
      > Even if you personally make good decisions if the market for good products is not big enough the addictive products will be all that's available. Nothing is all good and nothing is all bad, but rather allˋs a shade of grey. My way of solving the addiction Problem is to get rid of the dark stuff by putting a box on all shady and only letting it through in a controlled manner so only light comes out at the end. The box is like a teacher, assisting and guiding. Not limiting but supporting with anything I want done. I am unable to find a better metaphore.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  Existence itself is a competition. "Survival of the fittest" implies that some level of fitness is required to survive. Few macroscopic organisms can go more than a few days without consuming some other thing that was living not long ago, whether plant or animal. Capitalism creates a realistic incentive structure within the constraints of the real world, including the constraints of the biological systems that undergird human and animal life. It has problems, but by this point, it's well-proven that living under dictatorial fiat disguised as utopian mythology is far worse.

reader5000 9y ago

> But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold jobs, failure to reach traditional milestones (marriage, own house, children, etc.).

fhood 9y ago
Funny how the the symptoms of so many addictions boil down to this.
terminalcommand 9y ago
I also think that internet addiction is visible. When you submerse yourself into the digital world, you don't take care of your health, your physical appearance. I guess internet addiction varies in its severance. I have a friend from high school, he was the smartest kid in class, was a math-genius. Somehow he lost interest in school. He has a Youtube channel, where he posts game videos, earns a bit money from there (i guess 500 dollars per month). He is "trying" to study economics, but he is still in the same semester after three years. He does lead a life, but not in the physical world. He was a handsome kid, now he doesn't eat and doesn't care about appearances. He only drinks iced tea (no water) and eats limited food he likes (like pasta or chocolate). Although his life may seem weird, I respect him. That's his choice to live in the digital world.
- euyyn 9y ago
  The very nature of addiction is that he's not completely free to make the choice, though.
  - terminalcommand 9y ago
    The question is, is it really an addiction? Can we specify it as a lifestyle choice? The individual in question thinks, has goals, becomes sad, happy and most importantly his intelligence is intact. He is not like an advanced heroine addict playing the same tape over and over again.

bdamm 9y ago

Overeaters Anonymous and Sex Addicts Anonymous are two organizations that have been grappling with this, successfully, for some time. Especially in the Overeaters Anonymous case, it's obvious that you can't stop eating, and must therefore must define some boundary between healthy eating and compulsive gluttony. I suspect many "Internet Addicts" likely already have an idea of what level of use is unhealthy, so that's a reasonable basis for an individual to begin with. Defining a metric for society at large will be much harder.

euyyn 9y ago
Good point. The case of over-eating does have the physically-visible effects, but sex addiction has not, so it's a very close situation.
tbabb 9y ago
For the internet, there are some tools for this. I find it very helpful to decide ahead of time how many minutes a day it's acceptable to waste on "addictive" internet sites, and then use extensions (StayFocused for Chrome is very good) to block them after that amount of accumulated time has passed. Helps by taking away some of the need to exercise pure willpower, without completely excluding entire parts of the internet from you.
- waterlink 9y ago
  That is an amazing approach. Thank you! I'll try the plugin.