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This recent trend of calling everything addictive and normalizing this misuse is not only stupid but also dangerous to society at large. Addiction is a serious

This recent trend of calling everything addictive and normalizing this misuse is not only stupid but also dangerous to society at large. Addiction is a serious thing with a well defined meaning. By applying it to things that are just actually rewarding, as opposed to things that hijack the reward system via direct manipulation to skew responses to predicted reward, it creates a perception of danger. This perception of danger then allows for the conversation about real issues that need solutions (usually education) to bottom out and begin calls for the use of government violence to prevent people from doing what they want. Encouraging the use of force against people who haven't done any violence or fraud themselves is a very bad thing. The circumstances have to justify it. Misuse of the word addiction helps that false justification.

munificent 8y ago
> Addiction is a serious thing with a well defined meaning. Yes, and that meaning applies fully to smartphone apps for many people. > By applying it to things that are just actually rewarding, as opposed to things that hijack the reward system via direct manipulation to skew responses to predicted reward Again, this applies to apps as much as it does to cigarettes. In both cases, you do get a short-term sensation of reward followed by regret and negative long-term consequences.
- superkuh 8y ago
  > this applies to apps as much as it does to cigarettes. How you you say this seriously? You are completely ignoring the direct biochemical effect of nicotine on the reward prediction system. A computer application does NOT have this effect.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Isn’t everything “you” experience due to a chemical reaction in the brain?
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    This is not true; there have been studies showing that the effects of smartphone addiction are similar to those of alcohol/drug addiction.[1][2] [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-addiction-drug-642320/ https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-addiction-drug-6... [2]: https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction/new-studies-compare-smartphones-cocaine-addiction/ https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction/new-studi...
    - superkuh 8y ago
      I read the second article and noticed that they have no idea what they are talking about. See, > It stimulates neurotransmitter receptors in the brain’s reward center with a huge surge of dopamine — an organic feel-good chemical, or neurotransmitter. They're still repeating the same old wives tales about the dopaminergic systems being related to feeling good. This was known to be false even back in the 1970s. They encode for reward incentive salience, not actual feelings of pleasure. Given this the entire rest of the article can be disregarded. But, that leaves the actual study cited. This seems to be a 1000 person study of self reports of behavior by college students through text. Self reports are not going to tell you anything but the biases of the people involved. And at the very most, if we accept this study's conclusions at face value then all they're saying is that people have built up habits relating to phones. Dependence. This is the word you want to use. It is definitely not addiction.
    - Raphmedia 8y ago
      There is a big difference between something that gives you pleasure and then create a bad habit and an actual addiction. What you are doing is the equivalent of saying that it's fine to play video games late because "people are addicted to it". Most people aren't. They simply have deep rooted bad habits. Playing Flappy Bird every time you commute isn't an addiction. Wanting to finish your level before logging off isn't either. An addiction is when your mind is always focused on the addictive behavior. You have an urge than can never be fulfilled. It's a shifting goalpost because your tolerance increases as you spent more and more time attempting to satisfy the urges. It gets so bad it takes over your life, become more important than your career and family. Actual gambling, gaming & internet addictions are life breaking. People die from it [1][2][3]. Entire families get broken from addiction. People lose careers over it. Don't throw the word around haphazardly. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death/inde... [2] https://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-02-01/story/jacksonville-mom-who-killed-baby-while-playing-farmville-gets-50-years https://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-02-01/story/jac... [3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm
  - munificent 8y ago
    > A computer application does NOT have this effect. Neither does gambling or sex, but people can be addicted to those as well.
    - superkuh 8y ago
      "Data do not support sex as addictive" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2817%2930441-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30441-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30441-8
ordu 8y ago
From Wikipedia[1]: > Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. [...] The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli are that they are reinforcing (i.e., they increase the likelihood that a person will seek repeated exposure to them) and intrinsically rewarding (i.e., they are perceived as being inherently positive, desirable, and pleasurable). It is a psychological definition of addiction. It is all about compulsive behaviour of seeking for some stimuli and nothing about the hijacking of the reward system or use of government violence. What does it mean to hijack the reward system and how to demarcate it from "to be actually rewarding"? Is eating of high-carb food actually rewarding? You can get a lot of cheap calories this way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction
jstarfish 8y ago
Much of what is self-diagnosed as phone "addiction" is really some form of post-partum/separation anxiety-avoidance. When you learn a behavior and reinforce it long enough, any disruption to that has a nasty tendency to "break" people. Take solitary confinement, or soldiers-- trained to lose their sense of self during boot camp and adopt a career specialty, a team identity and a surrogate "family" over the course of years and then get everything taken away due to RIFs. it's not just PTSD that contributes to veteran suicides. With phones, we have entire generations who learn to swipe before they even know how to wipe. Kids and teenagers are on-call 24/7, ready to respond to meaningless notifications and updates anytime anybody on Earth does anything. Even in cases where they're being bullied to the point of suicide, they'll check in regularly for another dose of abuse until the bitter end. Go to a restaurant and count how many "couples" are on their respective phones instead of interacting with each other. Our behavior is being shaped in ways our primitive understanding of psychology has yet to adapt to. Nobody is in a hurry to put down their phones because they're so connected the rest of the time, the isolation that follows is its own form of withdrawal. Doesn't make it an addiction, but when compulsivity drives your behavior, you're not that far removed from it either.

munificent 8y ago

> Addiction is a serious thing with a well defined meaning. Yes, and that meaning applies fully to smartphone apps for many people. > By applying it to things that are just actually rewarding, as opposed to things that hijack the reward system via direct manipulation to skew responses to predicted reward Again, this applies to apps as much as it does to cigarettes. In both cases, you do get a short-term sensation of reward followed by regret and negative long-term consequences.

superkuh 8y ago
> this applies to apps as much as it does to cigarettes. How you you say this seriously? You are completely ignoring the direct biochemical effect of nicotine on the reward prediction system. A computer application does NOT have this effect.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Isn’t everything “you” experience due to a chemical reaction in the brain?
- RussianCow 8y ago
  This is not true; there have been studies showing that the effects of smartphone addiction are similar to those of alcohol/drug addiction.[1][2] [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-addiction-drug-642320/ https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-addiction-drug-6... [2]: https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction/new-studies-compare-smartphones-cocaine-addiction/ https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction/new-studi...
  - superkuh 8y ago
    I read the second article and noticed that they have no idea what they are talking about. See, > It stimulates neurotransmitter receptors in the brain’s reward center with a huge surge of dopamine — an organic feel-good chemical, or neurotransmitter. They're still repeating the same old wives tales about the dopaminergic systems being related to feeling good. This was known to be false even back in the 1970s. They encode for reward incentive salience, not actual feelings of pleasure. Given this the entire rest of the article can be disregarded. But, that leaves the actual study cited. This seems to be a 1000 person study of self reports of behavior by college students through text. Self reports are not going to tell you anything but the biases of the people involved. And at the very most, if we accept this study's conclusions at face value then all they're saying is that people have built up habits relating to phones. Dependence. This is the word you want to use. It is definitely not addiction.
  - Raphmedia 8y ago
    There is a big difference between something that gives you pleasure and then create a bad habit and an actual addiction. What you are doing is the equivalent of saying that it's fine to play video games late because "people are addicted to it". Most people aren't. They simply have deep rooted bad habits. Playing Flappy Bird every time you commute isn't an addiction. Wanting to finish your level before logging off isn't either. An addiction is when your mind is always focused on the addictive behavior. You have an urge than can never be fulfilled. It's a shifting goalpost because your tolerance increases as you spent more and more time attempting to satisfy the urges. It gets so bad it takes over your life, become more important than your career and family. Actual gambling, gaming & internet addictions are life breaking. People die from it [1][2][3]. Entire families get broken from addiction. People lose careers over it. Don't throw the word around haphazardly. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death/inde... [2] https://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-02-01/story/jacksonville-mom-who-killed-baby-while-playing-farmville-gets-50-years https://www.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-02-01/story/jac... [3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm
- munificent 8y ago
  > A computer application does NOT have this effect. Neither does gambling or sex, but people can be addicted to those as well.
  - superkuh 8y ago
    "Data do not support sex as addictive" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2817%2930441-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30441-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30441-8

ordu 8y ago

From Wikipedia[1]: > Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. [...] The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli are that they are reinforcing (i.e., they increase the likelihood that a person will seek repeated exposure to them) and intrinsically rewarding (i.e., they are perceived as being inherently positive, desirable, and pleasurable). It is a psychological definition of addiction. It is all about compulsive behaviour of seeking for some stimuli and nothing about the hijacking of the reward system or use of government violence. What does it mean to hijack the reward system and how to demarcate it from "to be actually rewarding"? Is eating of high-carb food actually rewarding? You can get a lot of cheap calories this way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

jstarfish 8y ago

Much of what is self-diagnosed as phone "addiction" is really some form of post-partum/separation anxiety-avoidance. When you learn a behavior and reinforce it long enough, any disruption to that has a nasty tendency to "break" people. Take solitary confinement, or soldiers-- trained to lose their sense of self during boot camp and adopt a career specialty, a team identity and a surrogate "family" over the course of years and then get everything taken away due to RIFs. it's not just PTSD that contributes to veteran suicides. With phones, we have entire generations who learn to swipe before they even know how to wipe. Kids and teenagers are on-call 24/7, ready to respond to meaningless notifications and updates anytime anybody on Earth does anything. Even in cases where they're being bullied to the point of suicide, they'll check in regularly for another dose of abuse until the bitter end. Go to a restaurant and count how many "couples" are on their respective phones instead of interacting with each other. Our behavior is being shaped in ways our primitive understanding of psychology has yet to adapt to. Nobody is in a hurry to put down their phones because they're so connected the rest of the time, the isolation that follows is its own form of withdrawal. Doesn't make it an addiction, but when compulsivity drives your behavior, you're not that far removed from it either.