I thought about this a lot. It's my belief that it's similar to porn decreasing sex. You can get fulfillment from media that's like actual sex, it'll make an im

I thought about this a lot. It's my belief that it's similar to porn decreasing sex. You can get fulfillment from media that's like actual sex, it'll make an impact. For social networks we have this thing called a parasocial relationship. We can what we feel like is a worthwhile relationship online (but it's not). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction#Parasocial_relationships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction#Parasoc... In the end it screws up our incentive systems by fulfilling our natural urges. We dull our loneliness with the internet in the short term, ending up with greater loneliness in the long term. There's been a lot of reports of loneliness rising rising pretty dramatically. Debt on the other hand is falling as a percentage of gdp: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N IMO internet consumption is in the same category of addictive vice as drugs, gaming/gambling, drinking (which is just drugs tbh), etc. It's a short term simulation of successfully achieving our body's goals. It's fake and interferes with our actual success.