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I don't like how the author pits "using phones" and "success in life" against each other. I get his point, people who don't put any time into furthering their c

by dvdkon 6y ago

I don't like how the author pits "using phones" and "success in life" against each other. I get his point, people who don't put any time into furthering their career aren't likely to be in a good position later in life, but there are many who have obtained their career goals while "consuming" media for hours each day and there are also many who don't use their phone much and are still as poor as ever. I'm not against motivational articles or against critiques of modern smartphone usage, but this one seems to be to be mostly an emotional appeal with the wrong arguments. Paraphrased, "if you use phones, you won't make it anywhere in life, and you don't want that, right?"

otabdeveloper4 6y ago
Social media and video games are addictive in the same way that cigarettes, alcohol, etc., are. Worse, video games and social media are now explicitly targeted by big business to get kids addicted as early as possible. It's a mess and we're heading for a huge shakedown and re-orientation in a generation. (At one point cigarettes were seen as a "not big deal" too.)
- reedf1 6y ago
  Everything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals.I think what people need to be spared is some moralism about what your intrinsic goals "should" be. Some people's intrinsic goal is to be part of the culture of their time, and games do that just like books, movies, comics, what have you.
  - creata 6y ago
    There are lots of games that are simply designed as entertainment (edit: or political pieces, art, etc.), and I'm perfectly fine with those. But there are also games, typically mobile games, that blatantly do everything in their power to keep the player (often a naive child) coming back, and those are definitely manipulative. Manipulative enough to be illegal? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    > Everything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals. Which is a hell of lot more prevalent when the addictive behavior is driven by a centralized market incentive. Fentanyl - invented 1959 - didn't become a problem until the Sacklers' greed and fraudulent recommendations to doctors drove the opioid epidemic. Peace pipes and tobacco weren't a problem until the industrialized mass production of cancer sticks drove the manufacturers to reuse literally every ounce of waste through chemical reprocessing. I can't find the research right now but one paper I read on historical gambling mentioned that there is far less evidence of gambling as addictive behavior before urbanization because of a lack of opportunity and strong ties in small communities that kept both gamblers and bookies in line. It wasn't until the innovations in transportation in the 19th century that real estate speculators started building gambling enclaves like Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and the casinos along (and on) the Mississippi river. Showing ads - aka manipulating human behavior - is now the most profitable. The same thing is going to happen now: the purveyors of the addiction will continue to drive the dystopia to its ultimate conclusion until it gets regulated into the ground (all of the above), loses the largest lawsuit in history and gets culturally sidelined (tobacco), and/or everything but the gains get dismantled (Sacklers).

by dvdkon 6y ago

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

Social media and video games are addictive in the same way that cigarettes, alcohol, etc., are. Worse, video games and social media are now explicitly targeted by big business to get kids addicted as early as possible. It's a mess and we're heading for a huge shakedown and re-orientation in a generation. (At one point cigarettes were seen as a "not big deal" too.)

reedf1 6y ago
Everything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals.I think what people need to be spared is some moralism about what your intrinsic goals "should" be. Some people's intrinsic goal is to be part of the culture of their time, and games do that just like books, movies, comics, what have you.
- creata 6y ago
  There are lots of games that are simply designed as entertainment (edit: or political pieces, art, etc.), and I'm perfectly fine with those. But there are also games, typically mobile games, that blatantly do everything in their power to keep the player (often a naive child) coming back, and those are definitely manipulative. Manipulative enough to be illegal? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.
- akiselev 6y ago
  > Everything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals. Which is a hell of lot more prevalent when the addictive behavior is driven by a centralized market incentive. Fentanyl - invented 1959 - didn't become a problem until the Sacklers' greed and fraudulent recommendations to doctors drove the opioid epidemic. Peace pipes and tobacco weren't a problem until the industrialized mass production of cancer sticks drove the manufacturers to reuse literally every ounce of waste through chemical reprocessing. I can't find the research right now but one paper I read on historical gambling mentioned that there is far less evidence of gambling as addictive behavior before urbanization because of a lack of opportunity and strong ties in small communities that kept both gamblers and bookies in line. It wasn't until the innovations in transportation in the 19th century that real estate speculators started building gambling enclaves like Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and the casinos along (and on) the Mississippi river. Showing ads - aka manipulating human behavior - is now the most profitable. The same thing is going to happen now: the purveyors of the addiction will continue to drive the dystopia to its ultimate conclusion until it gets regulated into the ground (all of the above), loses the largest lawsuit in history and gets culturally sidelined (tobacco), and/or everything but the gains get dismantled (Sacklers).