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I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology. In some ways I think that the addiction to technology has some similar mellowing effects as drugs. So

• eikenberry 2y ago
  The article discusses all drug use, not just addictive use. I don't think addiction is prevalent enough to solely explain those numbers.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Well, I think there is also an emergent theme in the research that there also needs to be two distinct concepts: addiction, and attachment. See [1]. [1] Hertlein, Katherine M., and Markie LC Twist. "Attachment to technology: The missing link." Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy 17.1 (2018): 2-6.
• some_furry 2y ago
  Does compulsive technology use trigger the same neural pathways as addictive substances? Because "addiction" is a very loaded term (with a specific clinical definition when it's not being used colloquially), and the sources you cited used "attachment" instead.
  • _yb2s 2y ago
    I think the answer here is a bit subtle and hard to explain, because it contradicts a lot of common assumptions about addiction and drugs. In short, many addictive substances create a chemical dependence that often has awful, even potentially fatal chemical withdrawal symptoms. Behavioral addictions don't cause this, which makes people assume they are entirely something different, and categorically less serious and damaging. This is wrong- because those withdrawal symptoms, while they do make it harder to quit by making going cold turkey difficult and sometimes impossible, they are not the underlying reason why these drugs are being abused in the first place, nor the reason they destroy peoples lives. The reason is that they stimulate the reward system and/or allow one to escape negative emotions and trauma. Behavioral addictions also do that, and can just as easily ruin ones life, by completely overcoming someones mind and will, such that they no longer are able to live their life, and are unable to escape or quit with willpower, just as much so as with drugs that cause withdrawal. They can still completely ruin your life and drive you to suicide, etc. Moreover, people also often emphasize that many addictive substances can directly cause serious health problems, or even death. This is also not central to their harmfulness, nor always the case. In fact, for a drug to have substantial abuse potential it must be relatively free from serious adverse health effects, at least in the short term, or else it would become impossible to abuse- the most damaging substances are the ones where people can take higher doses for longer with less adverse effects, because this more strongly emphasizes its ability to be used to strongly stimulate the reward system and escape negative emotions and trauma for longer periods of time - cementing the addiction-, without causing a new negative experience on its own. Methamphetamine for example is unique among stimulants in how benign it is- allowing people to take massive doses over really long periods of time, and not face immediate health issues. Counter-intuitively, this is actually what makes it have so much abuse potential and cause so much harm, compared to other stimulants which quickly make you sick or feel awful at high doses. From this perspective, you can see that the fact that behavioral addictions are also able to be repeated in "large doses" for long periods of time without immediate short term health consequences can make them have a high potential for harm in the long term.
    • card_zero 2y ago
      Explain why MDMA isn't a huge addiction problem like meth (or all that popular any more).
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Fair point. Some other studies use addiction too, though, and there is a distinction between both addiction and attachment and the links between them is a bit nebulous. You can check out the results on Google Scholar if interested.
  • superkuh 2y ago
    I couldn't agree more. Using the term addiction in contexts where it is not medically valid is very dangerous (like yelling "fire" in a theater) and leads to the use of violent force against those one falsely claims are "addicted". Audio-visual stimuli from screens and speakers has never been shown to be able to have the same effects as a dopaminergic drug which is to say, completely turning up incentive salience regardless of reward or lack of it. That is why drugs are dangerous. Technology can only be habit forming (in some contexts, maybe) if it continues to be rewarding in some way. Psychological dependence, maybe, but never addiction, and not even physiological dependence. Addictive drugs do not have to be rewarding or pleasurable. They just hijack wanting. They are not the same and definitely should not be legislated the same. Enjoying something that is actually fun is not the same as wanting something because it chemically turned on wanting.
    • _yb2s 2y ago
      There is no reason to assume that a behavior that activates the reward system is categorically less harmful than a molecule that activates it directly. In both cases it can completely overcome someones will such that it destroys their life and they can’t escape it. Both are addiction. You’re making a distinction without a difference- a fire only needs to be hot enough to kill, it does not become “invalid” just because you can think of other types of fire, or hotter fires. You are using the word “medical” to emphasize your point incorrectly- behavioral addictions are included in the modern medical concept of addiction, and the idea that they should be considered categorically separate from substances is an outdated concept. The DSM-5 for example has a diagnostic criteria for gambling addiction.
      • superkuh 2y ago
        >no reason to assume that a behavior that activates the reward system is categorically less harmful than a molecule that activates it directly. There are mountains of papers, books and all sorts of evidence that drugs that directly act as agonists for populations of dopaminergic neurons the VTA that mediate incentive salience (methamphetamine, cocaine, etc) are incredibly addictive (wanting, not liking, not reward. reward prediction). This is very different than an experience that is naturally rewarding like sex (liking, and maybe wanting later remembering the liking). Anticipation of sex may activate VTA dopaminergic populations but the reward of sexual activity itself does not. And certainly not things like viewing audio-visual media on screens. I use medical to emphasize that when you try to reason about these things without fine grained understanding you come to false general conclusions. I do agree that with drugs that just activate reward directly (like opioids with glutamergic populations in the shell of the nucleus accumbens) can rapidly become addictive. But these too are different than expriences that happen to activate reward through sensation. For example, sexual activity is a behavior that activates reward yet very few people become addicted to it.
  • goodpoint 2y ago
    > Does compulsive technology use trigger the same neural pathways as addictive substances? Absolutely yes: the dopamine circuit.
  • Nasrudith 2y ago
    Triggering the same neural pathways is also a flawed way to look at things. Dopamine exists without the presence of drugs despite the dysfunctional state of discourse demonizing literally anything which releases dopamine. A true dopamine detox would in fact be very bad for your health, physical and mental. The point being, drugs exploit existing pathways and biochemical interactions, they don't create them de novo. The set isn't just "compulsive technology | drugs" it is "compulsive technology | drugs | eating | running | mental stimulation | sexual activity | etc."
• imoverclocked 2y ago
  Be careful of a possible false dichotomy; People don’t need to have a drug.
  • ndileas 2y ago
    Hey, speak for yourself, buddy. More seriously, I think there's ample historical evidence that drugs (with a liberal definition, beer, etc) are very popular across various times and places.
    • kube-system 2y ago
      And religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
      • ikanreed 2y ago
        That very wikipedia article you links makes it clear it's not intended to mean religion is a "Drug" in the sense of being addictive, but rather a sociological pain killer. A tonic that limits how much people react to their own suffering.
        • kube-system 2y ago
          Absolutely. And smart phones are also not literally a drug. Drugs, video games, alcohol, and religion, are all used as a part of coping mechanisms for many, however.
          • vacuity 2y ago
            > a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence (Merriam-Webster, "addiction") It might be stretching it somewhat, but I think video games, social media, and religion can manifest a habitual need to indulge, negative effects from doing so, and negative effects from not doing so. Perhaps not in most people. Coping mechanisms/painkillers can naturally cause some people to be "in too deep" because they keep using it and become dependent.
• jart 2y ago
  If everyone is switching from drugs to social media, then that's progress. Twitter and Facebook won't harm your body. They're also free, so your habit will never make you poor and desperate. This kind of revolution in improving our health makes me proud to work in the tech industry. The worst that can happen is you'll feel sad if people bully you online, but that's the fault of people, not the technology. We can improve the human condition, but we can't change human nature.
  • hgh 2y ago
    Perhaps? But a confounder is the strengthening or weakening of social ties. It's not clear that what seems to increasing loneliness is doing well by this next generation.
  • kube-system 2y ago
    Mental health is health, and poor mental health can result in death... death rates that we have seen climb precipitously among children. Trading heroin deaths for suicides isn't an improvement, even if the dealers feel they aren't directly responsible.
  • dagss 2y ago
    Plenty of bad side effects: Harming your brains development, ability to concentrate, harm the ability to find joy in non-screen activities, mental health and so on.
  • pseudocomposer 2y ago
    I’d argue that targeted advertising and unprecedentedly-centralized corporate control of what text, images, and video we see online is just as potentially harmful as (recreational) drug use, if not worse. And online-shopping/adventure-travel/other addictions facilitated by targeted ads and targeted content algorithms can definitely leave people unable to achieve goals in life. Creating a new addiction to replace the last generation’s isn’t really something to be proud of. As developers, we should be aiming to create ways to communicate that aren’t addictive and facilitate genuine connection with others that includes their highs, the lows, and financial/socioeconomic transparency.
  • 2y ago
• achairapart 2y ago
  Suddenly I remember this movie from the 90s where people drugged themself with some kind of minidisc. “Strange Days”, maybe? Anyhow, I always found the plot weird, but maybe they actually were onto something…
  • dragonwriter 2y ago
    The minidiscs in that case where full-sensory VR recordings of people’s experiences.
  • genezeta 2y ago
    The discs had -in the movie- the memories of another person, and you would experience that memory and sensations as if you were living it. So, e.g. someone would record themselves doing something risky and you would get the adrenaline rush from watching it. So... Maybe in some way one could argue that social media gives some sort of connection were you get some feelings from what others are doing/showing. I mean, technologically it's quite a leap, but in a conceptual way... it's still a bit of a leap but maybe not that big.
    • twiceaday 2y ago
      Sounds like Brain Dances (BDs) from Cyberpunk 2077.
      • nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
        Yes, which originally came from Cyberpunk, the first sourcebook for which was released in 1988, with Cyberpunk 2020 releasing in 1990 complete with the idea for pre-recorded replayable memories/full sensory experience, ie:Braindance. Strange Days was released in 1995. Maximum Mike was, and is, a prophet right alongside Gibson. edit: Although almost certainly this wasn't the first place people imagined being able to record and playback memories.
        • saxonww 2y ago
          Made me think of Total Recall, which was adapted from "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," looks like from 1966.
• rolph 2y ago
  Tek comes to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekWar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TekWar
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Hey I remember that show! What a weird one. I kinda liked it though.
• alecco 2y ago
  Gen Z was conditioned with algorithmic timelines and loot boxes (gambling).
  • fullspectrumdev 2y ago
    I wonder if that’s why there’s now such a fucking problem with sports betting…
    • Nasrudith 2y ago
      I think it is more the accessibility increase from it being allowed along with unfettered advertising ensuring that the targeted ad demographic is "literally anybody who watches sports and more".
    • notTooFarGone 2y ago
      You can thank the supreme court for that. Also Trump ran 2015 in support of sports betting online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_Athletic_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_...
• Klonoar 2y ago
  It is somewhat amusing that Leary had a period of saying that computers were the new drugs (“PC is the new LSD” or something)
  • dbtc 2y ago
    Marshall "Joyce is my LSD" McLuhan would agree emphatically.
  • mindcrime 2y ago
    "Turn on, boot up, jack in" ~~ Timothy Leary
  • briandear 2y ago
    Chaos and Cycberculture, Timothy Leary, 1994. An astounding book.
• HPsquared 2y ago
  Opiate of the masses (21st Century version)
  • mr_toad 2y ago
    Bread and Circuses. Or at least, circuses.
    • HPsquared 2y ago
      They'll have bread, but they won't have bred.
  • dbtc 2y ago
    I think psychedelic is more apt (but not a perfect analogy either). Expands horizons, connects self to world, catalyzes cults and psychoses.
• thr0w 2y ago
  Growing up, people on the street would fidget with their cigarettes. Now they fidget with their phones.
  • Zambyte 2y ago
    I would argue that the health impacts of both habits are comparable too.
• yowayb 2y ago
  Makes complete sense to me. Drugs are an effective distraction because they're easy to use and often fast-acting. Outdoor/sport distractions require effort (driving, etc). Video games require much less effort. Add to that less-trivial things like investing and research, and you've got the perfect "addiction"
  • akira2501 2y ago
    There are games designed to be addicting. Some even have gambling built in. Technology is just a tool.
• jvm___ 2y ago
  You can order custom kitten being killed videos on the internet. Is this suppressing the serial killers and rapists in our society? It's along the lines of your theory, the internet is filling in a base need for a segment of society that's always been there.
• m463 2y ago
  I wonder if it is like facebook. The next generation weren't interested in facebook, because "that's what moms use" and figured out something different. As to drugs, now many are legal, so parents can now partake in what used to be illegal for them. Or for harder drugs, "Uncle Bob does drugs, and he's always in trouble". So one generation of parents acts as a negative example for the next generation to reject.
• athrowaway3z 2y ago
  It does replace a demand of people who want to mellow out. The same tech completely disrupts how drug-use spreads as well. There is nobody to offer a first hit if you're hanging out online. --- Though I would caution taking tech as _the_ cause. Things like demographics and the general zeitgeist shouldn't be ignored. Maybe the kids are really into DARE.
  • MikeRichardson 2y ago
    > There is nobody to offer a first hit if you're hanging out online. Silk Road/etc.?
    • immibis 2y ago
      don't pretend that's the same thing
• globular-toast 2y ago
  This was my first thought too. Their phones are all they need. Plus they are legal, encouraged even.
• card_zero 2y ago
  This is a massively overstated, trendy, technically incorrect thing to say.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Even if technological "addiction" is not like real drug addiction, it is something strange. People constantly checking, scrolling without any real purpose. There's some sort of conditioned behaviour in it that has some facets of addiction.
    • astura 2y ago
      How do you know they don't have a purpose? Seems like you're projecting your insecurities on strangers.
      • vouaobrasil 2y ago
        A lot of people have the same feeling about technology. I personally regulate my technological use fairly stringently. I almost never carry a smartphone with me for instance. It's got nothing to do with personal insecurities. I'm just interested in contributing to a more critical discussion on technology.
    • casey2 2y ago
      You should read some absurdist literature, people doing things without any real purpose is very common. Nobody cared about drug addiction until it was politicized. US politicians have a long history of using drug users as scapegoats to win elections to disastrous results. Prohibition, drug war, next are social media bans. The insanity will never end.
  • nvarsj 2y ago
    Agreed. The original comment just made me think "good grief". No, scrolling on a website is not the same as doing lines of coke in the club bathroom.
    • 2y ago
• tirant 2y ago
  I fear the (negative) impact of our current technological drugs goes beyond the impact of traditional drugs. I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller. Main impact on kids is lack of socialization, lack of emotional regulation and a complete impact on their capabilities to keep their attention. Those used to be indicators for a future failed adulthood. I remember traditional drugs only becoming present around 14-16 years old. Alcohol was probably the most prevalent, and probably the most dangerous. Followed by Cannabis, tobacco and some recreational drugs like MDMA. Most of those drugs had a component that actually pushed kids heavily towards socialization and forming peer groups. Now looking back to the results of that drug consumption I would say that most of the individuals engaging on them were able to regulate and continue to what it seems to be a very normal adult life. Obviously tobacco with terrible potential future health effects, but beyond that, everyone I know turned up pretty healthy. Not only that, I remember some time later that the most experimental group (mdma, LSD, mushrooms) of drug users being full of people with Master Degrees and PhDs. The new technological drugs scare me way more than the old traditional ones. Obviously it is a normal response of the known va unknown. Time will tell.
  • will5421 2y ago
    Playing Devil’s advocate… Socialisation is what’s driving technology use. It’s just happening on the phones, not irl. Just like with alcohol, anyone not participating will be left out. If everyone’s on their phones all the time, IRL socialisation won’t matter compared to socialisation via phones.
    • vouaobrasil 2y ago
      Disagree. Nothing can replace face to face socialization. We're not even close. Our minds are just adapting, but to a new local maximum that is far away from the global maximum of ideal. (Edit: corrected typographical error.)
    • Timshel 2y ago
      Socialization online exists, but I'm not sure that it's the main activity on phones. When you look at https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-for-teens https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-for-teens it does not look promising. Video is leading, then Gaming which can include socialization then third come Social media but with Tik Tok leading which I would not categorize as socialization.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• addicted 2y ago
  I’ve said this story before but I quit Facebook about 10 years ago, at a time when it was essentially the only social media game in town, so I was essentially quitting social media, and the quitting process felt exactly like when I had quit smoking the year before that.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Indeed. And I do feel that we need a sort of new terminology for technological "attachment/addiction" or whatever it is. Because people continue to nitpick on whether it is physiologically the same as physical dependence and that completely misses the point.
• fsflover 2y ago
  Yes, and a former executive confirmed that it's intentional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498
• heresie-dabord 2y ago
  > I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology Technology certainly is the economic sector that we privilege against all criticism of the harm it does to young people, to voting adults, to information quality, to public discourse, and to democracy itself.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Well, we have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology, so regardless of its negative effects or its diminishing returns, we develop it. It's a strong piece of circumstantial evidence for technological determinism, not to mention many advancements are clear-cut cases of the prisoner's dilemma (arms race), such as computer security vs. hackers.
    • hamburga 2y ago
      I’ve been looking at it more from an ecological angle. “We have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology” — this implies it was a deliberate decision. Whereas in reality, there’s a selection effect where leaders who embrace technology the most aggressively simply get rewarded in money and power, and they go on to promote accelerationist views with that power. With the logical conclusion that people are increasingly treated as resources to be harvested by technology. I don’t know the answer, but I refuse to accept determinism (despite not believing in free will, separate conversation), and I think that framing this as an ecological competition between species — humans vs machines — is clarifying.
      • vouaobrasil 2y ago
        > “We have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology” — this implies it was a deliberate decision. Whereas in reality, there’s a selection effect where leaders [...] No, it doesn't imply a deliberate decision. I've never said it was deliberate. It's more of an emergent phenomenon. > I don’t know the answer, but I refuse to accept determinism (despite not believing in free will, separate conversation), and I think that framing this as an ecological competition between species — humans vs machines — is clarifying. True, but determinism shouldn't be thought of as inevitable. And that's not the case in the philosophical literature either. Technological determinism is more of a force like gravity that can be overcome, and can be measured (theoretically, some have tried) numerically. The large the force, the harder it is to overcome, but overcoming it is not impossible obviously. Feel free to email to discuss further.
• Spooky23 2y ago
  I think it’s not technology as a thing people are hooked to - it’s taken over social life. My 13 year old and his buddies socialize online, period. In person stuff is mostly organized. That is helped by school policy that got rid of the idea of a neighborhood school. Additionally, the social activities that coalesced around things like alcohol are out of reach of many teens. I live in a city that had a very active college bar scene. It’s dead and gone. Crackdowns on underage serving and cost drives it away. Happy hour special at a place that other day was $12 for 4 coors lights in a bucket. In 1998, I’d pay $15 for a dozen wings and all you can drink swill for 3 hours.
  • cluckindan 2y ago
    ”My 13 year old and his buddies socialize online, period.” Nothing new under the sun. Me and my friends were like that 30 something years ago.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      It's a different beast, these days, though. Back then, only "nerds" socialized online. Nowadays, everyone does it. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I'm really glad that kids aren't screwing up their formative years. Drug use during growing/development years can wreck someone's life. The issue is that, if you are an addict (which is different from physical addiction. Many addicts never get physically addicted to anything), then you'll eventually have problems with drugs; even if they are "socially acceptable" ones, like pot or alcohol (pot being "socially acceptable" is kinda new, around here, but Things Have Changed). It'll still destroy your life, but, at least, you'll hopefully have something like an education, and living skills, by then, which can help Recovery (and also hinder it).
      • derwiki 2y ago
        It was maybe only nerds in 1994, but by 1998 everyone at school was asking their parents for the internet so they could talk on ICQ—not just the nerds!
• badpun 2y ago
  I wonder if we're entering an era of social stagnation, caused by screens. Before screen-based entertainment was so ubiquitous, young people (teens and young adults) experienced a lot of boredom, which pushed them to do new things. Many of those things were stupid and bad (drugs etc.), but some of those kids decided they were ambitious and wanted their life to be above ordinary in terms of achievement and impact on the world. Today, there's less room for such thoughts to even emerge - and if they do, they have to compete for mindshare with addictive entertainment on a daily basis.
• pnut 2y ago
  I like this idea, but we are nowhere near a point of diminishing returns. We are about to experience the wholesale obsolescence of the economic value of human labour, which means in practical terms, no stupid jobs just to have a place to live, intelligent robots cleaning your house etc If anything, buckle up. Going surfing every day or crotchet may become a perfectly legitimate life aspiration.
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > just to have a place to live, intelligent robots cleaning your house etc Animals could say precisely the same thing about living in a zoo! (1) Who determines the allocation of resources in your utopia? How do you handle an ever increasing population that depends on the biosphere which itself is the only source of raw materials and energy for the incredible amount of energy required for it? (2) People need a purpose. Most people will find a life of really doing nothing quite boring. Like it or not, people want some control over their destiny, and not to be animals in a cage. (3) If people really don't need each other, what will happen to the social fabric? If AI can really do everything for us, then what is to stop some people from killing all the rest and taking everything for themselves? We have only relative morals that function when they are necessary, and some people not even that.
• webdoodle 2y ago
  Luigi and Uncle Ted both thought technology was evil, and preached about it to anyone who would hear but they were both censored and ignored, forcing them to violence to reclaim there tongues. They both knew that, as Euripides said many years before: 'This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.'
• nickpsecurity 2y ago
  Watch people on their phones just endlessly watching, scrolling, clicking… little actually being done. It’s mostly a series of tiny high’s the apps, esp games and social media, are designed to generate. People also experience withdrawal-like symptoms when they go cold turkey on it. Technological media is definitely like a drug in many cases. Not all or for all people but often. It also lets others influence your mind for selfish reasons. Between the two, it’s a good idea to both be selective and limit it.
• emchammer 2y ago
  It was not until I recently set up Screen Time in macOS that I realized how much I was being distracted from applying myself to the specific creative endeavor that I have set for myself. It works per-application and across devices, and it is a real benefit compared to the iptables rules I had set up before. I have web, news and other things on Downtime from midnight to noon daily, and throughout the Sabbath. It brings clarity to do the most important things first in the day.