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Thanks for bringing up friends. I find I’m compelled to talk to my friends regularly, on a daily basis. If I don’t get enough interaction with them, I get depre

Thanks for bringing up friends. I find I’m compelled to talk to my friends regularly, on a daily basis. If I don’t get enough interaction with them, I get depressed. I start suffering withdrawal from lack of contact with friends. Also, like a true addict I can’t account for how much time I’ve spent with my friends in the last month. I can’t estimate how much I’ve lost career wise because I chose to prioritise this addiction instead. You’re going to say “no no, friends are different.” That it’s actually healthy compared to let’s say, grinding WoW with friends from your guild. But it’s no different really. Why is it unhealthy if I spend hours playing WoW with friends but it’s healthy if I play football instead? The dominant narrative on HN is that of course internet is an addiction. And that it’s pushed by evil companies that seek to profit off of it. Here’s a different perspective - the idea that it’s an addiction and that you’re powerless to solve it on your own is pushed by people who want you to turn to them to solve it. And pay for that privilege. In reality it’s not an addiction like heroin. You can beat it on your own without rehab or buying their 30 day detox program.

bodge5000 5y ago
This is the crux of the issue. Anything can be classified as an addiction by the metrics being used, but certain things "don't count" as they've been classified as entirely good. The next question would be why. I'd argue that it might be (though I could be wrong on this, I haven't thought through all the possibilities) because the internet is new (or at least, the latest thing), whereas books are old. New thing bad, old thing good. For example, TV is seen as bad, but nowhere near as bad as the internet, but go back a few decades, and TV addiction is the hot issue to be solved. Perhaps if you go back far enough, you will find chess addiction or books addiction to be the hot issue.
- skohan 5y ago
  I think it's not as simple as that. Books don't have the same reward loop as the internet, so they're not "unnaturally compelling" to the same degree. To give a counter-analogy, at some point slot machines were new, and people might have lumped them in with the same category as chess: a fun game that you can play to pass the time. But eventually it was understood that slot machines have certain intrinsic properties which make them much harder to stop playing than chess for a lot of people, and we ended up regulating them because it was causing harm to society.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    This is the case with almost anything - every addictive thing is addictive to varying degrees. The fact that many people are able to enjoy let’s say, alcohol responsibly doesn’t make it less intrinsically addictive to the other folks. And let’s take another example - sugar. I have a serious weakness for it. I just can’t stop with one of anything sweet. It’s better if I just don’t eat any of it. But that’s the addict in me talking, and I shouldn’t extrapolate my experience to the rest of society who are able to enjoy sugar responsibly. That’s where i disagree with your characterisation of the difference between chess and slot machines. It depend entirely on the person involved. Folks who can enjoy responsibly shouldn’t penalised because there are others who can’t. Btw, if you disagree with my characterisation of sugar as addictive, you don’t need it to survive. It’s perfectly possible to live on protein and fat alone. The withdrawal from sugar is painful, but it’s doable.
    - skohan 5y ago
      > That’s where i disagree with your characterisation of the difference between chess and slot machines. It depend entirely on the person involved. Folks who can enjoy responsibly shouldn’t penalised because there are others who can’t. Arguably we do have that with slot machines. If you want to go somewhere to gamble recreationally, you can book a trip to Vegas or Atlantic City. But we limit access because of the potential for harm. We don't let kids gamble, and I'm certain if every gas station was allowed to have a couple slot machines inside, we'd see a lot more people throwing their life savings away because their brains aren't wired in a way which lets them resist the compulsion. There's a spectrum in terms of how addictive things are, and how much harm they do which we use to determine how much we as a society deem it is responsible to limit access to these things in order to protect people and society as a whole. For instance, coffee is quite addictive, but it's not vary harmful, so access is pretty much free. Sugar is pretty addictive, but only slightly harmful, so it largely gets a pass. Cigarettes and alcohol are addictive and moderately harmful, so we keep them away from kids and tax them to make them more expensive and less attainable. Hard liquor is more harmful than beer and wine, so a lot of places restrict access to specific stores to make it harder to come by. And it might be the case that some people can enjoy heroin responsibly, but it's so strongly addictive, and so incredibly harmful that we make it illegal to obtain it at all - even that means "penalising" the few folks who could potentially enjoy it responsibly. I don't know where social media fits on that spectrum, but it is addictive, and it is at least worth considering how much harm is being done and whether we should think about regulating it.
mola 5y ago
Do you consciously want to stop talking with your friends but find you can't? If not, then you are not compelled. Your argument is a strawman argument. Calling something addictive, does not equate to saying that if you stop doing it, you get hurt. With this definition living /breathing/eating would be called addiction. That's not a very useful definition, and that's not the meaning of addiction.

bodge5000 5y ago

This is the crux of the issue. Anything can be classified as an addiction by the metrics being used, but certain things "don't count" as they've been classified as entirely good. The next question would be why. I'd argue that it might be (though I could be wrong on this, I haven't thought through all the possibilities) because the internet is new (or at least, the latest thing), whereas books are old. New thing bad, old thing good. For example, TV is seen as bad, but nowhere near as bad as the internet, but go back a few decades, and TV addiction is the hot issue to be solved. Perhaps if you go back far enough, you will find chess addiction or books addiction to be the hot issue.

skohan 5y ago
I think it's not as simple as that. Books don't have the same reward loop as the internet, so they're not "unnaturally compelling" to the same degree. To give a counter-analogy, at some point slot machines were new, and people might have lumped them in with the same category as chess: a fun game that you can play to pass the time. But eventually it was understood that slot machines have certain intrinsic properties which make them much harder to stop playing than chess for a lot of people, and we ended up regulating them because it was causing harm to society.
- nindalf 5y ago
  This is the case with almost anything - every addictive thing is addictive to varying degrees. The fact that many people are able to enjoy let’s say, alcohol responsibly doesn’t make it less intrinsically addictive to the other folks. And let’s take another example - sugar. I have a serious weakness for it. I just can’t stop with one of anything sweet. It’s better if I just don’t eat any of it. But that’s the addict in me talking, and I shouldn’t extrapolate my experience to the rest of society who are able to enjoy sugar responsibly. That’s where i disagree with your characterisation of the difference between chess and slot machines. It depend entirely on the person involved. Folks who can enjoy responsibly shouldn’t penalised because there are others who can’t. Btw, if you disagree with my characterisation of sugar as addictive, you don’t need it to survive. It’s perfectly possible to live on protein and fat alone. The withdrawal from sugar is painful, but it’s doable.
  - skohan 5y ago
    > That’s where i disagree with your characterisation of the difference between chess and slot machines. It depend entirely on the person involved. Folks who can enjoy responsibly shouldn’t penalised because there are others who can’t. Arguably we do have that with slot machines. If you want to go somewhere to gamble recreationally, you can book a trip to Vegas or Atlantic City. But we limit access because of the potential for harm. We don't let kids gamble, and I'm certain if every gas station was allowed to have a couple slot machines inside, we'd see a lot more people throwing their life savings away because their brains aren't wired in a way which lets them resist the compulsion. There's a spectrum in terms of how addictive things are, and how much harm they do which we use to determine how much we as a society deem it is responsible to limit access to these things in order to protect people and society as a whole. For instance, coffee is quite addictive, but it's not vary harmful, so access is pretty much free. Sugar is pretty addictive, but only slightly harmful, so it largely gets a pass. Cigarettes and alcohol are addictive and moderately harmful, so we keep them away from kids and tax them to make them more expensive and less attainable. Hard liquor is more harmful than beer and wine, so a lot of places restrict access to specific stores to make it harder to come by. And it might be the case that some people can enjoy heroin responsibly, but it's so strongly addictive, and so incredibly harmful that we make it illegal to obtain it at all - even that means "penalising" the few folks who could potentially enjoy it responsibly. I don't know where social media fits on that spectrum, but it is addictive, and it is at least worth considering how much harm is being done and whether we should think about regulating it.

mola 5y ago

Do you consciously want to stop talking with your friends but find you can't? If not, then you are not compelled. Your argument is a strawman argument. Calling something addictive, does not equate to saying that if you stop doing it, you get hurt. With this definition living /breathing/eating would be called addiction. That's not a very useful definition, and that's not the meaning of addiction.