Comment by intended

A parallel between attitudes about new technologies, does not work when the parallel between the two technologies itself is broken.

I too was on slashdot, back in the early days of 5 digit/6 digit IDs. I’ve since worked in trust and safety, and contributed to research on it, and have played video games enough that it’s the “sport” I prefer.

The evidence and research shows that social media is entirely different than the benign games we grew up with. Zelda, Mario, Golden Eye, Ultima - are not the same as the behavioral skinner boxes that showed up with the advent of FarmVille.

And thats just games - the Skinner box and addictive design philosophy has resulted in direct quotes from people at meta warning their executives that this is going to make life worse for children and teens.

The comparison isn’t between panic about video games. The comparison is about panic about giving kids cigarettes and vapes.