3 ms·

You could substitute anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV) for "social media" in the above a

by xnx 2y ago

You could substitute anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV) for "social media" in the above and it makes as much sense.

dizzant 2y ago
> TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive gambling app ever created. > Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that gambling is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms. Not really. TikTok isn't a gambling app.
- iaseiadit 2y ago
  The comparison here is a slot machine: you pay a a few to play, you pull the lever to play, you win a prize. Here, the payment is your attention, you swipe to the next video to play the game, and the prize if you land on a good video is a small hit of dopamine.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  It's a variable reward dopamine hit generator.
- redwall_hp 2y ago
  Everyone's losing their collective mind about people watching videos on a platform not approved by our oligarchs, while there's an epidemic of people racking up gambling debt from the sudden prevalence of DraftKings and other mobile sports betting apps.
  - root-user 2y ago
    At least in circles I frequent, people are pretty upset with the state of sports betting too. Feels like lots of things are pretty crappy these days, simultaneously
  - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
    There can be more than one bad thing at a time.
jprete 2y ago
The GP's statement doesn't work with reality TV or televised sports. Both of those are produced with a lot of human effort, and the cycle time for new content is way too large to form addictions. Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive and frequently are not set up to be in the best interests of the users.
- smallstepforman 2y ago
  “ Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive “ There are billions of casual drinkers / gamblers / gamers who do not show any sign of addiction. I’m really tired to hear the same nonsense repeated again and again. Do a pyschology study of any casino employee that spends 40 hours a week in a gaming venue, or any manufacturer of gaming devices that professionally play games 40 hours a week, and none of these employees exposed to so much gambling / drinking are addicted. Psychology studies have not established that these items are “addictive”, because if they were, they would be banned all over the world. Nowhere in the western world are they banned, ghey are regulated for “fairness”. There are some individuals that throw the word addiction around without justification, please dont be one of them.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Alcohol is literally physiologically addictive. Withdrawal symptoms include seizures and death. Of course these things are known to be and recognized by governments as addictive. Addictive things aren't always banned. Here's a US government page discussing alcohol addiction from an organization the government has dedicated to raising awareness of the adverse effects of alcohol, including addiction: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addiction https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addicti... You also basically observed that the people selling the addictive thing don't get addicted, which is sort of obvious. You don't get addicted by being near e.g. alcohol and providing it to others. You get addicted by regularly drinking it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rounce 2y ago
ndriscoll 2y ago
Yes? The person you replied to was pretty explicit in drawing a comparison to vices like gambling and alcohol, which are indeed usually regulated. Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such.
- p_j_w 2y ago
  > Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such. Where are they being regulated at all?
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-illegal-japan-china-belgium-netherlands/ https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il... There was a bill introduced in the US that didn't go anywhere. Of course gambling has recently been heavily deregulated in the US so I suppose we can't expect much to be done about gambling in video games right now. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1629/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/162... I vaguely recall it in at least one of those state bills to regulate social media for kids (listing it as an addictive behavior that's "harmful to minors" or whatever), but can't find specifics. I don't know whether something has passed anywhere in the US.
  - catlikesshrimp 2y ago
    Amusingly, Apple and Google might be the first serious regulators of those. https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox.pdf https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox.... "Verifying Loot-box Probability Without Source-code Disclosure" Just read the abstract
jerf 2y ago
"anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV)" Respectively, heavily regulated, heavily regulated, poorly regulated but really has to toe the line to not fall into the first bucket, fairly regulated (with shifting attitudes about what they should be, but definitely not unregulated), probably only a problem because this is "gambling" again lately and has been regulated in the past and I suspect may well be more heavily regulated in the near future, and people probably would not generally agree this belongs in the list.
- xnx 2y ago
  Good points. I would welcome a discussion on ways social media (however defined) should be regulated to mitigate harms. Hopefully, that would put the perceived harms in context of other harms we regulate.
  - bun_at_work 2y ago
    One way could be age limits and more stringent verification of age for all social media platforms. Another way could be limiting feed algorithms to chronological order only. Another could be limiting what data can be collected from users on these platforms. Or limiting what data could be provided to other entities. Who knows if these are the best ways to regulate social media, but they would like help mitigate some of the clear harms.
danielovichdk 2y ago
I love to drink. Absolutely adore it. Putting on a great recors, open 2 bottles of wine and call 10 different people during the span of 4 hours. I wouldn't trade it for social media any day of the week. I am drinking right now actually
- paulg2222 2y ago
  I get you. The techies in here won't, they think it's fun to drink liquified cereal waste.
- root-user 2y ago
  This is a vibe and I'm here for it.

by xnx 2y ago

You could substitute anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV) for "social media" in the above and it makes as much sense.

dizzant 2y ago

> TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive gambling app ever created. > Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that gambling is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms. Not really. TikTok isn't a gambling app.

iaseiadit 2y ago
The comparison here is a slot machine: you pay a a few to play, you pull the lever to play, you win a prize. Here, the payment is your attention, you swipe to the next video to play the game, and the prize if you land on a good video is a small hit of dopamine.
cratermoon 2y ago
It's a variable reward dopamine hit generator.
redwall_hp 2y ago
Everyone's losing their collective mind about people watching videos on a platform not approved by our oligarchs, while there's an epidemic of people racking up gambling debt from the sudden prevalence of DraftKings and other mobile sports betting apps.
- root-user 2y ago
  At least in circles I frequent, people are pretty upset with the state of sports betting too. Feels like lots of things are pretty crappy these days, simultaneously
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  There can be more than one bad thing at a time.

jprete 2y ago

The GP's statement doesn't work with reality TV or televised sports. Both of those are produced with a lot of human effort, and the cycle time for new content is way too large to form addictions. Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive and frequently are not set up to be in the best interests of the users.

smallstepforman 2y ago
“ Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive “ There are billions of casual drinkers / gamblers / gamers who do not show any sign of addiction. I’m really tired to hear the same nonsense repeated again and again. Do a pyschology study of any casino employee that spends 40 hours a week in a gaming venue, or any manufacturer of gaming devices that professionally play games 40 hours a week, and none of these employees exposed to so much gambling / drinking are addicted. Psychology studies have not established that these items are “addictive”, because if they were, they would be banned all over the world. Nowhere in the western world are they banned, ghey are regulated for “fairness”. There are some individuals that throw the word addiction around without justification, please dont be one of them.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Alcohol is literally physiologically addictive. Withdrawal symptoms include seizures and death. Of course these things are known to be and recognized by governments as addictive. Addictive things aren't always banned. Here's a US government page discussing alcohol addiction from an organization the government has dedicated to raising awareness of the adverse effects of alcohol, including addiction: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addiction https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addicti... You also basically observed that the people selling the addictive thing don't get addicted, which is sort of obvious. You don't get addicted by being near e.g. alcohol and providing it to others. You get addicted by regularly drinking it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rounce 2y ago

ndriscoll 2y ago

Yes? The person you replied to was pretty explicit in drawing a comparison to vices like gambling and alcohol, which are indeed usually regulated. Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such.

p_j_w 2y ago
> Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such. Where are they being regulated at all?
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-illegal-japan-china-belgium-netherlands/ https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il... There was a bill introduced in the US that didn't go anywhere. Of course gambling has recently been heavily deregulated in the US so I suppose we can't expect much to be done about gambling in video games right now. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1629/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/162... I vaguely recall it in at least one of those state bills to regulate social media for kids (listing it as an addictive behavior that's "harmful to minors" or whatever), but can't find specifics. I don't know whether something has passed anywhere in the US.
- catlikesshrimp 2y ago
  Amusingly, Apple and Google might be the first serious regulators of those. https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox.pdf https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox.... "Verifying Loot-box Probability Without Source-code Disclosure" Just read the abstract

jerf 2y ago

"anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV)" Respectively, heavily regulated, heavily regulated, poorly regulated but really has to toe the line to not fall into the first bucket, fairly regulated (with shifting attitudes about what they should be, but definitely not unregulated), probably only a problem because this is "gambling" again lately and has been regulated in the past and I suspect may well be more heavily regulated in the near future, and people probably would not generally agree this belongs in the list.

xnx 2y ago
Good points. I would welcome a discussion on ways social media (however defined) should be regulated to mitigate harms. Hopefully, that would put the perceived harms in context of other harms we regulate.
- bun_at_work 2y ago
  One way could be age limits and more stringent verification of age for all social media platforms. Another way could be limiting feed algorithms to chronological order only. Another could be limiting what data can be collected from users on these platforms. Or limiting what data could be provided to other entities. Who knows if these are the best ways to regulate social media, but they would like help mitigate some of the clear harms.

danielovichdk 2y ago

I love to drink. Absolutely adore it. Putting on a great recors, open 2 bottles of wine and call 10 different people during the span of 4 hours. I wouldn't trade it for social media any day of the week. I am drinking right now actually

paulg2222 2y ago
I get you. The techies in here won't, they think it's fun to drink liquified cereal waste.
root-user 2y ago
This is a vibe and I'm here for it.