Comment by teh_infallible
5 years ago
The word “addiction” is overused in my opinion. Bad habits are not addictions. An addiction is something which actively harms you, but you can’t stop doing it.
Yes, you can argue social media is harmful, but it generally does not cause people to lose their jobs or spend all their money.
I agree that "addiction" can be overused (irony unintentional), but I think it can be objectively defined by whether or not it causes a lasting biochemical change in the user (eventually), which causes discomfort or pain upon withdrawal. Food, for example, does not; we enjoy it (sometimes), but having more does not make us eat ever-larger amounts (if it's, say, a green salad; high-fructose corn syrup I admit the jury is still out).
So, the assertion that social media is "addictive" would translate to, "it conditions the user to require a dopamine (or whatever) hit that they will return to the social media to acquire, and will feel bad (worse than before they used it) if they stop using." Whether or not that's true of social media is debatable, but I think it is raising at least a valid question.
On the other hand, even though Stack Overflow has a lot of the same software features, it has no such problem, so I think the important question is what does Facebook do differently than Stack Overflow to cause people to spend ever-larger amounts of time on it, to no real purpose?
I'm addicted to caffeine. It's relatively harmless, might even help me work better. No one ever lost their job or spent all their money on caffeine. But it's unquestionably an addiction.
If we're going into like very technical definitions I believe what you're talking about is physical dependence. In a mental health context persisting use even after multiple serious negative consequences is part of the definition of addiction.
Though even there I think they are moving to phrases like "drug use disorder" partly because of usage mismatches like this.
Quite a few would lose their jobs if NOT for caffeine, I'd wager.
Can someone have a gambling addiction? I've often heard that gambling addiction is a real problem, so why can't social media be addictive? Social media and mobile games like to use similar "engagement" techniques as slot machines, for example.
Yes, but just like how the vast majority of gamblers aren't addicts, the same is probably true of social media.
There's also the major difference in consequences. If you're truly addicted to social media, you're way less likely to destroy your life (although it could still be possible.)
COVID has been more harmful than a deadlier disease would be because it spreads more effectively.
If social media caused people to lose their jobs or spend all their money, far fewer people would use it, and public engagement with the problem would be greater.
I suggest that social media's harm to society is greater because it's less harmful to the individual than gambling, etc.
> The word “addiction” is overused in my opinion. Bad habits are not addictions. An addiction is something which actively harms you, but you can’t stop doing it.
I suggest parasitism as a more accurate description of what seeking "user engagement" is.
People quit their jobs to become influencers. Others spend all their money on OnlyFans. So yes, it's an addiction.
By the way, are you arguing that smoking is not an addiction?
Their definition was generally using the word "harmful" for which smoking clearly qualifies. Losing one's job was just one example how something can be harmful.
The definition of psychiatric disorders includes this kind of requirement. E.g. if you can't sleep more than a couple hours with no apparent negative effects, it's not a sleep disorder. On the other hand if this situation is unbearable for you and you feel you need to sleep more but can't, then you have a sleep disorder.
But yes I'd think this is a pretty loose definition that would include things like social media. Personally I think more is needed. Is that social media addict a depressed person who would just escape from life via an alternative means like by watching TV or something else? If so we should call their problem depression, and call social media simply an "escape" not an addictive behavior.