Comment by mindcandy
5 years ago
Near my office in SF there is a guy who sits on the street corner with his pants rolled up so you can see that his calves were pretty much just two big, open, leaking sores as a side effect of so many injections. I bought him some bandages but he wouldn't use them until the end of the day because showing them off got him more sympathy money that he needed in order to purchase more injections. The motivation center of his brain has been completely hijacked by a product. Suffering to death is no longer a concern for him. Only the product matters.
I don't know what physical processes are behind a facebook addiction, but I doubt it's as serious a condition as that caused by a chemically addictive product. I would equate it more with gambling addiction. Not to say that it's not a problem, but I have a hard time equating the two. That might just be my naivete' though. I've been lucky enough not to encounter either type of addiction.
The desperation I've seen in addicted gamblers in Las Vegas doesn't seem so different from the despair I've seen from junkies. Both of these are addictions to which some people lose everything.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/19/problem-gamb...
I could definitely be wrong. I'd heard about people with gambling problems losing everything they own. In the end, perhaps the same parts of the brain are getting triggered.