4 ms·

Not sure why poeple don't just put the phone down? We really are the most sheltered gentle generation. Oh no, this app is taking up my time, we need to BAN IT.

aucisson_masque 8mo ago
Tell that to a drug user. It works the same way. And when the app is developed purposely to make people addict, that’s an issue. You can’t just blame the user when their chance to have a normal app usage have been rigged.
- Aeglaecia 8mo ago
  re adults it does fall to individual responsibility , re kids we can partially blame parents for not taking care of their kids properly , overall the enemy of our attention has quadrillions of dollars which is fairly difficult to fight against
flumpcakes 8mo ago
That's not how addiction works. If you could "just stop" then it isn't really an addiction.
- dmix 8mo ago
  Huh, that's exactly the solution to addiction? Step 1 is always changing your behaviour patterns to break out of habits and avoid things that draw you into it. Make your bedroom a phone-free zone, charge it in the living room overnight, use the built in parenting and screentime controls that every modern phone OS has, don't let your kids stare at the screen all day. Etc. This isn't rocket science. Self control is one of the most important things you need to learn. It sucks and it's hard but it's basic life stuff. The only difference with social media addiction vs drugs/gambling is that it's not socially ostracized like other addictions so people ignore it.
  - NoPicklez 8mo ago
    I think we can all agree that the solution is to stop, but that it is difficult to do so. I'm not addicted to alcohol or gambling, but I know that it takes significantly more willpower for those that are to just stop than it does for me to not have that chocolate bar at night. There is a proportionality to it
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
- ajam1507 8mo ago
  This is the lie that keeps people addicted. Plenty of people quit their very real addictions every day. If you imagine you're helplessly addicted, you will remain addicted.
  - Aerbil313 8mo ago
    I believed that for years, I did CBT, changing beliefs, "just do it" et cetera and I was helpless still, went from one addiction to another. Turns out I had ADHD. My life was totally changed after medication. You don't have infinite willpower. If humans had infinite willpower humanity would have worked itself to death long ago. There is a natural balance of willpower in your brain, it's called the dopaminergic system. If you have ADHD, you have much, much less willpower than a normal person because you literally lack the dopamine hormone in your prefrontal cortex. No amount of belief will magically create dopamine in your brain out of thin air.
nunez 8mo ago
Not drinking or gambling works so well for alcoholics and gamblers. Who needs rehab anyway?
- ajam1507 8mo ago
  And yet we're talking about a case against social media companies and not a case against casinos or distillers.
  - eigencoder 8mo ago
    Yeah because casinos and distillers already have laws regulating their use
    - ajam1507 8mo ago
      This isn't about regulation. This is about people bringing a lawsuit against social media companies for their addiction. Problem gamblers and alcoholics aren't suing the casinos and distilleries.
  - nunez 8mo ago
    Distinction without a difference. The social media companies re-use the playbooks these two industries practically invented. Yet social media doesn't have government-mandated surgeon general warnings or 24x7 support hotlines.
- SirMaster 8mo ago
  And are their laws about how much I can go gamble at the casino right now or how much I can go buy at a liquor store and drink tonight? Pretty sure too much gambling and too much alcohol is worse than watching too many short videos. So how can we say that spending time on figuring out how to block people from watching too many short videos is a better use of our time and resources than limiting gambling and drinking.
  - flocciput 8mo ago
    There are laws about the age you can be to gamble or drink, restrictions on the establishments where these things can occur, and you can have your license revoked for driving while under the influence, or be banned from a casino. Don't act like those are totally unrestricted activities.
davewritescode 8mo ago
Nice straw man. Nobody is talking about banning anything, we’re talking specifically about holding social media companies accountable for marketing to children a product that is knowingly addictive and potentially harmful to their health. Part of the issue with social media is that no reasonable parent lets their 12 year old watch porn or drink but Instagram and ticktock are on a lot more 12 year old’s phone’s than you realize. Social media has network effects and creates tremendous social pressure to not make your kid “different” when half the classroom is sharing TikToks. I’m not conservative in the slightest but I see no reason to treat social media any differently than alcohol, tobacco or gambling. Available without restriction to adults but limited to children under a certain age.
- card_zero 8mo ago
  This stuff is still unclear to me. The addictive drugs, ones that punish a quitter chemically, are not mysterious, but gambling addiction certainly is. "Dopamine" won't work as an explanation - for instance I was once hooked on building a wooden table, which sucked up two months of my free time and lots of money, and damaged my thumbs, and no doubt I was driven by the dopamine rush of learning through the repetitive process of chiseling. But gambling is assumed to be a glitch, not a wholesome obsession. In what way does it differ? The addiction is very old, I'm sure there are accounts from the 1700s, and it doesn't even require a house to reel the gambler in - it could all be about informal games and wagers, still leading to huge debts. It's tempting to blame it on dumb ideas about luck and fate, but the dumb ideas involved could be varied and complex. That's similar to dumb ideas involving social pressure. When people have a tendency to be dumb about a thing we use the law to restrict the thing, apparently. But this involves, in effect, an authoritative declaration of "that's dumb" by law. I feel personally threatened, then, in activities such as my woodwork, which might have been an equally dumb obsession! I know nobody's at all likely to regulate woodwork, but that's only because it's relatively unpopular. I could imagine a parallel universe where woodwork (portable somehow) becomes a trend that makes a young person feel socially relevant, and then it gets regulated. I think I disapprove of this interference with people's dumb notions.
- Revolution1120 8mo ago
  This is no longer a matter of adults or minors; this is a matter of terrorist acts committed by a satanic cult and organized crime. And the response will not be limited to legal means; we will seek to respond with the same kind of terrorist tactics.
expedition32 8mo ago
Funny I wondered the same thing with opiates. I dislike taking even aspirin so why can't everyone be like me!
Aerbil313 8mo ago
Congratulations! You have apparently won in life by successfully developing internal regulation during childhood and also won the genetic lottery by not having a disorder of the dopaminergic system like ADHD. Now please leave be the significant fraction of the population who don't have those privileges, thank you. I've missed critical final exams and flights literally scrolling Instagram. Mental health disorders exist, alas.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]

aucisson_masque 8mo ago

Tell that to a drug user. It works the same way. And when the app is developed purposely to make people addict, that’s an issue. You can’t just blame the user when their chance to have a normal app usage have been rigged.

Aeglaecia 8mo ago
re adults it does fall to individual responsibility , re kids we can partially blame parents for not taking care of their kids properly , overall the enemy of our attention has quadrillions of dollars which is fairly difficult to fight against

flumpcakes 8mo ago

That's not how addiction works. If you could "just stop" then it isn't really an addiction.

dmix 8mo ago
Huh, that's exactly the solution to addiction? Step 1 is always changing your behaviour patterns to break out of habits and avoid things that draw you into it. Make your bedroom a phone-free zone, charge it in the living room overnight, use the built in parenting and screentime controls that every modern phone OS has, don't let your kids stare at the screen all day. Etc. This isn't rocket science. Self control is one of the most important things you need to learn. It sucks and it's hard but it's basic life stuff. The only difference with social media addiction vs drugs/gambling is that it's not socially ostracized like other addictions so people ignore it.
- NoPicklez 8mo ago
  I think we can all agree that the solution is to stop, but that it is difficult to do so. I'm not addicted to alcohol or gambling, but I know that it takes significantly more willpower for those that are to just stop than it does for me to not have that chocolate bar at night. There is a proportionality to it
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
ajam1507 8mo ago
This is the lie that keeps people addicted. Plenty of people quit their very real addictions every day. If you imagine you're helplessly addicted, you will remain addicted.
- Aerbil313 8mo ago
  I believed that for years, I did CBT, changing beliefs, "just do it" et cetera and I was helpless still, went from one addiction to another. Turns out I had ADHD. My life was totally changed after medication. You don't have infinite willpower. If humans had infinite willpower humanity would have worked itself to death long ago. There is a natural balance of willpower in your brain, it's called the dopaminergic system. If you have ADHD, you have much, much less willpower than a normal person because you literally lack the dopamine hormone in your prefrontal cortex. No amount of belief will magically create dopamine in your brain out of thin air.

nunez 8mo ago

Not drinking or gambling works so well for alcoholics and gamblers. Who needs rehab anyway?

ajam1507 8mo ago
And yet we're talking about a case against social media companies and not a case against casinos or distillers.
- eigencoder 8mo ago
  Yeah because casinos and distillers already have laws regulating their use
  - ajam1507 8mo ago
    This isn't about regulation. This is about people bringing a lawsuit against social media companies for their addiction. Problem gamblers and alcoholics aren't suing the casinos and distilleries.
- nunez 8mo ago
  Distinction without a difference. The social media companies re-use the playbooks these two industries practically invented. Yet social media doesn't have government-mandated surgeon general warnings or 24x7 support hotlines.
SirMaster 8mo ago
And are their laws about how much I can go gamble at the casino right now or how much I can go buy at a liquor store and drink tonight? Pretty sure too much gambling and too much alcohol is worse than watching too many short videos. So how can we say that spending time on figuring out how to block people from watching too many short videos is a better use of our time and resources than limiting gambling and drinking.
- flocciput 8mo ago
  There are laws about the age you can be to gamble or drink, restrictions on the establishments where these things can occur, and you can have your license revoked for driving while under the influence, or be banned from a casino. Don't act like those are totally unrestricted activities.

davewritescode 8mo ago

Nice straw man. Nobody is talking about banning anything, we’re talking specifically about holding social media companies accountable for marketing to children a product that is knowingly addictive and potentially harmful to their health. Part of the issue with social media is that no reasonable parent lets their 12 year old watch porn or drink but Instagram and ticktock are on a lot more 12 year old’s phone’s than you realize. Social media has network effects and creates tremendous social pressure to not make your kid “different” when half the classroom is sharing TikToks. I’m not conservative in the slightest but I see no reason to treat social media any differently than alcohol, tobacco or gambling. Available without restriction to adults but limited to children under a certain age.

card_zero 8mo ago
This stuff is still unclear to me. The addictive drugs, ones that punish a quitter chemically, are not mysterious, but gambling addiction certainly is. "Dopamine" won't work as an explanation - for instance I was once hooked on building a wooden table, which sucked up two months of my free time and lots of money, and damaged my thumbs, and no doubt I was driven by the dopamine rush of learning through the repetitive process of chiseling. But gambling is assumed to be a glitch, not a wholesome obsession. In what way does it differ? The addiction is very old, I'm sure there are accounts from the 1700s, and it doesn't even require a house to reel the gambler in - it could all be about informal games and wagers, still leading to huge debts. It's tempting to blame it on dumb ideas about luck and fate, but the dumb ideas involved could be varied and complex. That's similar to dumb ideas involving social pressure. When people have a tendency to be dumb about a thing we use the law to restrict the thing, apparently. But this involves, in effect, an authoritative declaration of "that's dumb" by law. I feel personally threatened, then, in activities such as my woodwork, which might have been an equally dumb obsession! I know nobody's at all likely to regulate woodwork, but that's only because it's relatively unpopular. I could imagine a parallel universe where woodwork (portable somehow) becomes a trend that makes a young person feel socially relevant, and then it gets regulated. I think I disapprove of this interference with people's dumb notions.
Revolution1120 8mo ago
This is no longer a matter of adults or minors; this is a matter of terrorist acts committed by a satanic cult and organized crime. And the response will not be limited to legal means; we will seek to respond with the same kind of terrorist tactics.

expedition32 8mo ago

Funny I wondered the same thing with opiates. I dislike taking even aspirin so why can't everyone be like me!

Aerbil313 8mo ago

Congratulations! You have apparently won in life by successfully developing internal regulation during childhood and also won the genetic lottery by not having a disorder of the dopaminergic system like ADHD. Now please leave be the significant fraction of the population who don't have those privileges, thank you. I've missed critical final exams and flights literally scrolling Instagram. Mental health disorders exist, alas.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]