Comment by xnx
13 hours 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.
13 hours 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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
“ 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.
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-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.
Casino employees are typically barred from gambling at the venue they work at or others within the same ownership group, often not even at venues under different ownership within the same geographical area as their employer.
Scientific studies have established nicotine is addictive yet purchase and smoking of cigarettes is legal in most countries.
I've learned that moderation is key to avoiding their harmful effects. It’s easy to get caught up in the thrill, but understanding how these systems work is crucial. For instance, gacha games often rely on the same reward mechanisms as gambling, making them equally compelling. Exploring resources to stay informed can help reduce risks. For example, I came across a review on Wild Cash x9990 DEMO by BGaming at https://wildcashx9990.com/ which offers insight into gaming mechanics. Since the site itself doesn’t allow gambling
> doesn't work with reality TV or televised sports. Both of those are produced with a lot of human effort
Those two types of content are about the cheapest TV to produce. Per second of video produced (counting all the unpopular content), short videos might be more expensive, but the costs are very distributed.
Totally fair. I was thinking more in terms of the rate at which people can consume it; if your primary interest is following a sport, or current reality-TV shows, you can only consume content as quickly as it is released.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
There can be more than one bad thing at a time.
It's a variable reward dopamine hit generator.
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
I get you. The techies in here won't, they think it's fun to drink liquified cereal waste.
This is a vibe and I'm here for it.
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.
> Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such.
Where are they being regulated at all?
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/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.
Amusingly, Apple and Google might be the first serious regulators of those.
https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox....
"Verifying Loot-box Probability Without Source-code Disclosure"
Just read the abstract