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I don't know why you are conflating addiction with life-threatening physical withdrawal. Gambling addiction is categorized as an addiction according to the DSM

by skohan 5y ago

I don't know why you are conflating addiction with life-threatening physical withdrawal. Gambling addiction is categorized as an addiction according to the DSM, and no definition of addiction that I know of, clinical or colloquial, limits the definition of addiction to only substances which result in a life-threatening withdrawal. I think the term you are searching for is chemical dependency. In university, I worked in a lab studying the biological mechanisms of addiction for a couple of years. There is a fairly well understood relationship between dopaminergic release in the nucleus accumbens and the formation of behavioral patterns. This can be induced reliably with certain drugs, like stimulants, which chemically induce the activity of dopamine receptors. It can also be reliably induced endogenously, using a stochastic reward schedule. In other words, if you put a rat in a cage and give him a lever which produces a food pellet every time he presses it, he will eat until he is full, and then he will stop. If you give him a lever which produces a pellet randomly, he will press it all day, even to the point where he eats past the point of satiety, and forgets to drink water. This response to a stochastic reward schedule has been demonstrated in all kinds of animal models, and also in humans. It's also exactly the reason why slot machines are compelling and habit forming. You don't have to look very hard to see how a stochastic reward schedule is applied to things like mobile games, and the design of social media user journeys. Gambling addiction is real, and social media is designed to be addictive.

denton-scratch 5y ago
I think I clarified a bit up-comment: I'm concerned with terms becoming looser; perhaps a bit obsessed. I'm not fussed what the DSM says, especially about anything touching on psychology. I have heard that it's decisions carry a lot of weight in insurance and pharma circles. Also: - Suppose that there are drugs that cause pleasure by activating dopamine receptors; and - Suppose that certain behaviours (meditation, responding to stochastic triggers) would do the same; well, that would say nothing about the meaning of the word "addicted". I really don't mean to conflate anything, nor diminish the problems of people with non-chemical addictions. I just regret that a word that had one meaning now seems to have acquired many.
- skohan 5y ago
  > I'm not fussed what the DSM says, especially about anything touching on psychology. I have heard that it's decisions carry a lot of weight in insurance and pharma circles. The DSM is literally the consensus of the American Psychiatric Association on what constitutes a mental disorder. It's not perfect, but I'm not sure exactly what makes you feel confident to brush off the scientific consensus so easily. I also find this attitude about language a little bit funny. The way we speak is changing all the time. Would we be better off if we spoke the way we did 100 years ago, or a thousand years ago? I'm not sure addiction has ever had the extremely narrow meaning you've applied to it, but surely the people using the term 50 years ago had a less accurate understanding of the actual pathology of addiction, so why should we defer to them? You might be able to point to a period in history where alcohol withdrawal was attributed to demonic possession. I found this interesting, so I had a look into the etymology of the term addiction[0], and was interested to find this about the 16th century definition: > addiction as a form of devotion at once laudable, difficult, extraordinary, and even heroic. This view has been concealed by the persistent link of addiction to pathology and modernity: current understandings of, and scholarship on, addiction connect it to globalization, medicalization, and capitalism. Surveying sixteenth-century invocations reveals instead that one might be addicted to study, friendship, love, or God. The author states that addiction was once more synonymous with devotion - it was the act of giving over one's will and self-sovereignty to something or someone else, and letting another spirit breath into you and move you. It could refer to compulsion, but also to willing self-sacrifice. Arguably that definition is even more broad than the colloquial definition we use today, and the the main example this piece centers on - addiction to theater - is conceptually quite similar to a concept like addiction to television or addiction to social media in that it centers on a form of entertainment. [0]: https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/15773_toc.html https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/15773_toc.html

by skohan 5y ago

denton-scratch 5y ago

I think I clarified a bit up-comment: I'm concerned with terms becoming looser; perhaps a bit obsessed. I'm not fussed what the DSM says, especially about anything touching on psychology. I have heard that it's decisions carry a lot of weight in insurance and pharma circles. Also: - Suppose that there are drugs that cause pleasure by activating dopamine receptors; and - Suppose that certain behaviours (meditation, responding to stochastic triggers) would do the same; well, that would say nothing about the meaning of the word "addicted". I really don't mean to conflate anything, nor diminish the problems of people with non-chemical addictions. I just regret that a word that had one meaning now seems to have acquired many.

skohan 5y ago
> I'm not fussed what the DSM says, especially about anything touching on psychology. I have heard that it's decisions carry a lot of weight in insurance and pharma circles. The DSM is literally the consensus of the American Psychiatric Association on what constitutes a mental disorder. It's not perfect, but I'm not sure exactly what makes you feel confident to brush off the scientific consensus so easily. I also find this attitude about language a little bit funny. The way we speak is changing all the time. Would we be better off if we spoke the way we did 100 years ago, or a thousand years ago? I'm not sure addiction has ever had the extremely narrow meaning you've applied to it, but surely the people using the term 50 years ago had a less accurate understanding of the actual pathology of addiction, so why should we defer to them? You might be able to point to a period in history where alcohol withdrawal was attributed to demonic possession. I found this interesting, so I had a look into the etymology of the term addiction[0], and was interested to find this about the 16th century definition: > addiction as a form of devotion at once laudable, difficult, extraordinary, and even heroic. This view has been concealed by the persistent link of addiction to pathology and modernity: current understandings of, and scholarship on, addiction connect it to globalization, medicalization, and capitalism. Surveying sixteenth-century invocations reveals instead that one might be addicted to study, friendship, love, or God. The author states that addiction was once more synonymous with devotion - it was the act of giving over one's will and self-sovereignty to something or someone else, and letting another spirit breath into you and move you. It could refer to compulsion, but also to willing self-sacrifice. Arguably that definition is even more broad than the colloquial definition we use today, and the the main example this piece centers on - addiction to theater - is conceptually quite similar to a concept like addiction to television or addiction to social media in that it centers on a form of entertainment. [0]: https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/15773_toc.html https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/15773_toc.html