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I mean, I sincerely hope you're not speaking from experience. But have you ever dealt with an alcoholic at home? Or a heroin addict? Seen delirium tremens? Clea

I mean, I sincerely hope you're not speaking from experience. But have you ever dealt with an alcoholic at home? Or a heroin addict? Seen delirium tremens? Cleaned up the puke after a binge? Had your possessions stolen by a close relation for said drugs? Had to withhold giving them anything of value so they couldn't sell it to further their self-destruction? I remember one of my grand-uncles used to take off his oxygen mask to take puffs from his cigarettes before whatever illness finally killed him back in the 90s. Having seen a number of addictions from a relatively safe distance I will take algorithms 1000 times.

faeriechangling 3y ago
I saw an alcoholic yesterday. The cognitive decline I saw terrified me because this was a smarter than average person in their prime who was no longer able play a game that children could play. Alcohol and Tobacco aren't most drugs, but I maybe framed things misleadingly, as I see people use caffeine/addictive pharmaceuticals/psychedelics/cannabis a fair bit and those are all in the category of "drugs" and yet I knew few people with serious problems with those and yet I hardly can enter a room where multiple people aren't addicted to some algorithm.
- zemvpferreira 3y ago
  They must be the most commonly abused substances, no? In any case pardon me for waxing poetic but substance abuse strikes a nerve.
mrweasel 3y ago
Comparing these types of addictions probably isn't a good idea. Alcoholism, gambling and drug addictions are destructive in a way I doubt those of us who hasn't experienced it can imagine. Social media addictions are destructive in vastly different ways (unless you have family or friends who disappear down a dark conspiracy rabbit hole) and on a much larger scale. So while it isn't as damaging to the individual family as alcoholism, the overall cost of the degradation of society could easily surpass that of any other addiction, simply due to the number of people who are affected at some level.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  This is basically my observation, there is an insidious frog boiling effect to social media addiction where I look up and go "holy shit everybody is addicted" when nobody used to be. I used to be the only person using a computer recreationally at all.

faeriechangling 3y ago

I saw an alcoholic yesterday. The cognitive decline I saw terrified me because this was a smarter than average person in their prime who was no longer able play a game that children could play. Alcohol and Tobacco aren't most drugs, but I maybe framed things misleadingly, as I see people use caffeine/addictive pharmaceuticals/psychedelics/cannabis a fair bit and those are all in the category of "drugs" and yet I knew few people with serious problems with those and yet I hardly can enter a room where multiple people aren't addicted to some algorithm.

zemvpferreira 3y ago
They must be the most commonly abused substances, no? In any case pardon me for waxing poetic but substance abuse strikes a nerve.

mrweasel 3y ago

Comparing these types of addictions probably isn't a good idea. Alcoholism, gambling and drug addictions are destructive in a way I doubt those of us who hasn't experienced it can imagine. Social media addictions are destructive in vastly different ways (unless you have family or friends who disappear down a dark conspiracy rabbit hole) and on a much larger scale. So while it isn't as damaging to the individual family as alcoholism, the overall cost of the degradation of society could easily surpass that of any other addiction, simply due to the number of people who are affected at some level.

faeriechangling 3y ago
This is basically my observation, there is an insidious frog boiling effect to social media addiction where I look up and go "holy shit everybody is addicted" when nobody used to be. I used to be the only person using a computer recreationally at all.