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> How can I as an individual compete with billion dollar companies that literally hire neuroscientists/psychologists to make something as addictive as possible?

> How can I as an individual compete with billion dollar companies that literally hire neuroscientists/psychologists to make something as addictive as possible? If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. Similar story with alcohol: Plenty of people have no problem moderating their consumption, but a small percentage of people really struggle with limiting their intake. For the latter group, not drinking any alcohol at all is a great solution. I think this defeatist concept that social media is too addictive to resist sets a lot of people up for failure. It's not only possible to use social media without getting addicted, but it's the norm for the vast majority of people who use social media. If you're in the minority of people who can't moderate your own usage, then abstaining completely might be the best choice. But don't assume that addiction or uncontrolled doom-scrolling is inevitable.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. No, if someone can’t moderate their own consumption, abstinence usually fails. If a person finds something both easily resistable without immediate past use and hard to moderate immediately after use, abstinence works, but that’s not a super common response. People who have trouble moderating use immediately after a prior use also usually have problems resisting initial use.
- drdeca 5y ago
  Not saying you are wrong, because I wouldn’t know, But like, how are you able to tell that generally people would have difficulty moderating their use of something shortly after they first begin to use it, generally tend to also have difficulty not beginning use? That seems like it would be hard to measure/observe ?
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  It works because it's easy to understand. Simple rules for a complex world. If the rule is "don't do it", you know whether or not you're supposed to do it in any given case. That's not true if the rule is "be reasonable". If the first beer was reasonable, so is the second. One additional beer never really changes how reasonable your total consumption has been, even though the total range of reasonability is quite wide.
minikites 5y ago
>If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. It doesn't work for sex ed and I don't see why it would work for this.
- _jal 5y ago
  I assume this is thinly-veiled political sniping? Just seems like anyone posting here would notice the bleeding obvious - that sex ed happens in a very narrow age band not noted for self-knowledge, gratification delay or self control, compared with people with an addictive tendency across the age and self-control spectrum.
  - minikites 5y ago
    This article is about social media use and depression in teenagers, I thought the parallel and relevance was obvious.
- scatters 5y ago
  You can't see the difference between an activity that stimulates the dopamine reward pathways and the activity that is the reason those pathways exist?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I don't know any alcoholics who transitioned back to casual/social drinking. The ones who beat alcoholism stopped drinking altogether. You just have to admit to yourself it's something you can't control, and avoid it.
  - minikites 5y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about adults. This article (and therefore my comparison) are about teenagers.
lrvick 5y ago
If you abstain from alcohol you can always have a soda in hand and usually still stay socially connected with most if not all friends and family. If you abstain from meat, vegan options are seemingly everywhere now and everyone can sit at the same table. If you choose abstain from addictive profit motivated proprietary software, good luck keeping any connection with friends and family. You just stop existing in their universes, and they can't be bothered to try a different communication tool to respect your preference to not have your data exploited to manipulate and addict you. Ask me how I know.
- smallnamespace 5y ago
  Do your friends and family ignore direct text messages?
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Mine don't but it's always me who has to send them. I don't mind but I can imagine people can feel forgotten.
    - whitehouse3 5y ago
      I don’t see how social media changes this. Life is filled with people who don’t reach out first. It’s not like instagram changes them. The number of direct, meaningful messages between you and them is probably the same, independent of the platform. Social media facilitates indirect interaction (seeing posts from one another) but it won’t make “Han shoot first” more often. Stated another way: if you long for others to make first contact with you, social media won’t scratch that itch.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        Right, but before social media other people made direct contact (phone, ICQ, Skype...) just as much as I did - now they feel it's enough to post on social media, and if you don't participate in that then you must make the contact. My grandmother gets 2-5 random calls from her friends daily, the last unexpected call I received from a friend was in 2013 as we all switched to social media posting/commenting then.
hnbad 5y ago
The problem isn't that social media is too addictive to abstain. The addictiveness is what keeps you hooked, not what gets you into it. The problem is that social media is too addictive and also very difficult to avoid. For many jobs, social media has become if not integral then at least an implicit requirement ("please retweet our press release about new feature X"). It has also become a major news source, especially for niche or specialty topics (HN and reddit are "social media" too btw). Companies like Facebook (and to less success, Google) are trying everything to create onramps to their social media platforms wherever possible. In many places Facebook is used by municipality governments to post news updates, restaurants to post their opening hours and menu updates, and so on. "Social media abstinence" is not possible for everyone, difficult enough as it is once you've already been using social media.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  My kids schools make announcements on social media before sending alerts using the official SMS and email alerts I signed up for. Some discussions can only be done on facebook.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. No, if someone can’t moderate their own consumption, abstinence usually fails. If a person finds something both easily resistable without immediate past use and hard to moderate immediately after use, abstinence works, but that’s not a super common response. People who have trouble moderating use immediately after a prior use also usually have problems resisting initial use.

drdeca 5y ago
Not saying you are wrong, because I wouldn’t know, But like, how are you able to tell that generally people would have difficulty moderating their use of something shortly after they first begin to use it, generally tend to also have difficulty not beginning use? That seems like it would be hard to measure/observe ?
thaumasiotes 5y ago
It works because it's easy to understand. Simple rules for a complex world. If the rule is "don't do it", you know whether or not you're supposed to do it in any given case. That's not true if the rule is "be reasonable". If the first beer was reasonable, so is the second. One additional beer never really changes how reasonable your total consumption has been, even though the total range of reasonability is quite wide.

minikites 5y ago

>If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. It doesn't work for sex ed and I don't see why it would work for this.

_jal 5y ago
I assume this is thinly-veiled political sniping? Just seems like anyone posting here would notice the bleeding obvious - that sex ed happens in a very narrow age band not noted for self-knowledge, gratification delay or self control, compared with people with an addictive tendency across the age and self-control spectrum.
- minikites 5y ago
  This article is about social media use and depression in teenagers, I thought the parallel and relevance was obvious.
scatters 5y ago
You can't see the difference between an activity that stimulates the dopamine reward pathways and the activity that is the reason those pathways exist?
throwawayboise 5y ago
I don't know any alcoholics who transitioned back to casual/social drinking. The ones who beat alcoholism stopped drinking altogether. You just have to admit to yourself it's something you can't control, and avoid it.
- minikites 5y ago
  It sounds like you're talking about adults. This article (and therefore my comparison) are about teenagers.

lrvick 5y ago

If you abstain from alcohol you can always have a soda in hand and usually still stay socially connected with most if not all friends and family. If you abstain from meat, vegan options are seemingly everywhere now and everyone can sit at the same table. If you choose abstain from addictive profit motivated proprietary software, good luck keeping any connection with friends and family. You just stop existing in their universes, and they can't be bothered to try a different communication tool to respect your preference to not have your data exploited to manipulate and addict you. Ask me how I know.

smallnamespace 5y ago
Do your friends and family ignore direct text messages?
- emteycz 5y ago
  Mine don't but it's always me who has to send them. I don't mind but I can imagine people can feel forgotten.
  - whitehouse3 5y ago
    I don’t see how social media changes this. Life is filled with people who don’t reach out first. It’s not like instagram changes them. The number of direct, meaningful messages between you and them is probably the same, independent of the platform. Social media facilitates indirect interaction (seeing posts from one another) but it won’t make “Han shoot first” more often. Stated another way: if you long for others to make first contact with you, social media won’t scratch that itch.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Right, but before social media other people made direct contact (phone, ICQ, Skype...) just as much as I did - now they feel it's enough to post on social media, and if you don't participate in that then you must make the contact. My grandmother gets 2-5 random calls from her friends daily, the last unexpected call I received from a friend was in 2013 as we all switched to social media posting/commenting then.

hnbad 5y ago

The problem isn't that social media is too addictive to abstain. The addictiveness is what keeps you hooked, not what gets you into it. The problem is that social media is too addictive and also very difficult to avoid. For many jobs, social media has become if not integral then at least an implicit requirement ("please retweet our press release about new feature X"). It has also become a major news source, especially for niche or specialty topics (HN and reddit are "social media" too btw). Companies like Facebook (and to less success, Google) are trying everything to create onramps to their social media platforms wherever possible. In many places Facebook is used by municipality governments to post news updates, restaurants to post their opening hours and menu updates, and so on. "Social media abstinence" is not possible for everyone, difficult enough as it is once you've already been using social media.

pnutjam 5y ago
My kids schools make announcements on social media before sending alerts using the official SMS and email alerts I signed up for. Some discussions can only be done on facebook.