I don't think that is really true though. People aren't becoming addicted to grocery stores, ice cream parlours and restaurants, or even cable television to nearly (any?) degree. None of those are engineered to addict you in nearly the same degree or magnitude.

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twoodfin 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

What the best evidence that otherwise psychologically healthy people are becoming clinically addicted to social media?

People used to spend an awful lot of mindless time watching TV. They weren’t “addicted” in a clinically meaningful sense.

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slopinthebag 2 days ago | parent [-]

I haven't seen anybody making any claims about social media usage leading to clinically meaningful addiction. So why are you asking for evidence of that?

Also fwiw I'm not in favour of regulating social media, but I am in favour of bringing lawsuits to companies who engage in societally harmful behaviour, and punishing them financially.

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twoodfin 2 days ago | parent [-]

So what the heck are we talking about ITT?

“I’m so addicted to Firefly!”

That kind of thing?

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slopinthebag 2 days ago | parent [-]

No. It's been established that social media use can produce addiction-like behaviors, that it uses mechanisms similar to gambling and substance addiction, and that a subset of people experience significant impairment as a result of social media consumption. It's still debated if it should be classified as a form of Substance Use Disorder, which is what the term "clinically meaningful" refers to, but the debate is more a matter of classification and semantics, not if the issue exists at all. And not what people are referring to in the context of this case and discussion.

If you're interested in the topic further, you could consider reading 'Toward the classification of social media use disorder: Clinical characterization and proposed diagnostic criteria', which should shine some more light on what people are referring to as "addiction" in this circumstance :)

If you're interested in the neuroscience, consider reading "Neurobiological risk factors for problematic social media use as a specific form of Internet addiction: A narrative review".

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twoodfin 2 days ago | parent [-]

Ah. “Can produce addiction-like behaviors”!

Like, I dunno, really getting into running or yoga or fantasy football?

Where is the line, according to experts in addiction-like behavior?

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slopinthebag 2 days ago | parent [-]

Believe it or not, you might find the answer to that question inside the paper I shared with you called "Toward the classification of social media use disorder: Clinical characterization and proposed diagnostic criteria".

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235285322...

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twoodfin a day ago | parent [-]

I’m not asking about the criteria for establishing new disorders. I’m sure there are many.

I’m asking why all this fuss about the social media companies and not the video or causal game companies?

Nobody’s ever written a paper about Candy Crush addiction?

Everyone seems very excited to throw Meta and others in the bucket with Big Tobacco, and I don’t see how in the world that makes sense without much stronger clinical evidence on the harms of social media to non-mentally ill people.

	▲	slopinthebag 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I’m asking why all this fuss about the social media companies and not the video or causal game companies? Because of the scale of the observed harm. There is plenty of documented evidence of the harms of social media to otherwise non-mentally ill people, particularly with vulnerable demographics like adolescents and teenagers. At this point you're just playing dumb because you most likely work for big tech and are running interference. They aren't gonna give you a raise for it man, cut it out.

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jen20 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> or even cable television to nearly (any?) degree

24-hour commercial cable news (in the US) is the original sin of addictive media.

	▲	slopinthebag 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not seeing any signs of addiction even within an order of magnitude of social media.