Is social media more like cigarettes or junk food?

[nelox]

It's more like gambling

[kubb]

It’s almost exactly like a slot machine. You scroll down, and get a randomly scheduled “dopamine hit”.

[nthingtohide]

Do people not actively curate what they like? E.g. using more of "Not Interested". I generally follow artists because they have great taste. I am very religous in disliking if a particular post is not benefitting me in consuming it.

[RamblingCTO]

I do that heavily. Still, instagram decides to nuke my preferences quite often. Right now I'm on tik tok garbage, two weeks ago I had arabic muslim stuff (like videos in mosques, prayers etc). I don't use it at all when that happens, so they loose out. Give me trail running and outdoor shit and I'm happy, very easy!

[crackercrews]

Some platforms don't pay much attention to these instructions. LinkedIn is impervious to my suggestions.

[ruszki]

Algorithms are terrible with that. For example, there was this girl on TikTok who made fun things with her hair. It was fun, I marked it as I liked it. The first few times I enjoyed the exact same joke. Then when it became too frequent I indicated that I wanted less of it. The algorithm immediately thought that I didn’t care about fun things at all. I did this about 3 times, and my feed became really boring. The same in every single social media.

And it’s even worse, because when I flagged clear lies, my feed became more bland. So at the end I’m incentivised to consume lies.

[mariusor]

I managed to train Facebook out of showing me ads.

It took about two years of monthly clicking on "I don't want to see content from this page again" for it to stick, but now I haven't seen an ad in forever. Either I exhausted all companies in my area that advertise with Facebook, either the algorithm has stopped showing them to me.

[GoToRO]

The algorithm figured out that you will spend more time on the platform if you get annoyed. So what you like is not really taken into account.

[hapara2024]

I find Instagram in particular is garbage. Twitter / Youtube is much better with respecting your curation to some degree.

[ErigmolCt]

Was not able to read fully but I think it is something that combines elements of both. It’s designed to be addictive and also its effects depend heavily on how it’s consumed

[rpmisms]

Depends. I have quit social media, cigarettes, and nicotine at large. Nicotine was the easiest, cigarettes the hardest.

[pjerem]

Ironically (pure) nicotine is not that bad for the health, it’s just really addictive so it have been added to cigarettes for just this.

It can even have some good benefits if you are chronically stressed. I wonder if it could be an alternative to benzodiazepines for occasional use.

I never took nicotine so I don’t know how quick the addiction would come. With benzodiazepines it’s a really hard addiction but not if you take it once in a while.

[ggm]

Can't use social media as money in Jail. It's not like cigarettes, ramen or condoms.

[lencastre]

I know DSM V, what is the ICD 10?

[lmpdev]

Broader scope than DSM

Administrated by WHO

[tbrownaw]

Billing codes for doctors.

[killerpopiller]

a catalogue for diseases

[throwup238]

Insane Clown Disease?

[williamjinq]

I think most of the people overemphasize the harmness of social media.

I actually find connecting with my real-life friends a meaningful and satisfying experience.

But things are getting worse once I started to follow influencers and those I don't know in my real life.

[theshrike79]

More and more social media sites don't let you just follow "your friends".

They start automatically shoving suggested accounts in your face along with ads. On Instagram and FB both every 3rd or 4th post is a "suggested page". Also the algorithm has deemed that I don't need to get posts from the actual real people I follow unless I specifically go to their pages to see.

[nwhnwh]

Did you read any books about it?

[sturza]

Junk cigarettes - it has the addictive quality of nicotine.

[addicted]

All of the above.

Here are some key factors driving social media. The misincentives are obvious once you clearly see these.

1. It is fundamentally based on one of the strongest human impulses of community. 2. The economic model of social media is based on ads, which means they need to keep you on their platforms as long as possible. 3. They have vast troves of public, private, social and secret information on individuals. 4. They can modify their product every millisecond to adjust the product you experience based on all the factors above.

[froh]

5. most of them allow to target arbitrary content including political disinformation based on 3., and including unhinged hate speech

[jf]

On the basis of the headline alone, I would say "cigarettes" because I have quit two different social media sites using the technique described in the book "Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking"

[saghm]

Wouldn't this be consistent with social media being easier to quit than both junk food _and_ cigarettes? Given that, I'm not sure how can conclude which of them is more similar.

As an alternative take, my understanding of the difference between cigarettes and junk food is that cigarettes are more physically addictive than junk food (which at least to my naive medical understanding is more of a "psychologically addictive" substance than something that the body will literally start to reach poorly to withholding after repeated intake). I haven't heard of anyone ever suffering physical withdrawal symptoms from having to wean off of either junk food or social media, which makes them seem much more similar to me than either are to cigarettes.

As an alternative to either of the headline options, maybe it would make sense to compare it to alcohol? Unlike cigarettes, most people are not physically addicted to it when using, but unlike junk food, you still shouldn't be using it when driving.

[caseyy]

Same as cigarettes, much of doomscrolling is just to calm down the anxiety of not doomscrolling. Anxiety that didn’t exist in our lives before social media and one caused directly by its consumption.

[honestSysAdmin]

Thanks to social media, Facebook in particular, and sometimes Instagram, I have gotten laid. Thanks to social media I have gotten laid more than I otherwise would have, or probably should have.

I have not had the same experience with cigarettes and junk food.

[dailykoder]

Thanks to social media I got more and more depressed and anxious in my youth. My natural shame evolved into fantastic pathological shame. Took me only 10 years to fight against it and kinda feel normal again. Thank you social media

Edit: social media wasn't the cause, but a lot of fuel

[pjerem]

A hella lot of people have gotten laid with cigarettes, when it was cool.

Also the article is about kids. They have time for this to become a problem.

[smogcutter]

Junk food addiction (your word, not TFA’s) is also not in the DSM V, so appealing to authority like that or hanging on the word addiction gets you nowhere as far as whether the comparison to social media is interesting.

For what it’s worth gambling addiction is in the DSM-V. What’s it’s direct route to biochemically alter the brain, like nicotine and food intake?

[insane_dreamer]

> it has no route to directly biochemically alter the body or the brain (like nicotine and food intake)

that's not necessary to trigger dopamine in the brain and, in extreme cases, get you hooked on a particular activity because you feel a craving that you're unable to suppress (gambling is another good one, for some people it's just a fun activity, for others is an addition that they continue doing even when they know it's ruining them)

[reedf1]

I'm pretty sure all things you experience in this world can "directly biochemically alter the body". This isn't all that pedantic a point either. Your body directly produces neurochemicals from sense data, and, that includes the photons bouncing off of a like button, the particular movement of a scrolling finger, or the sonic vibration of a phone notification.

It wasn't so long ago that people balked at food addiction too. We are now in an era of mass A-B tested and optimised heuristics, the things we can do to manipulate the human brain are more understood.

[aliasxneo]

Doesn’t looking at porn cause a biochemical reaction in the brain? Just seems like the inputs are a lot more complex than you’re making them out to be.

[drdeca]

Q: Is a cast iron frying pan more like a crow or a bluebird?

A?: Neither, because it isn’t a bird.

Q: Is a cube more like a square or a circle?

A?: Neither, as it isn’t a 2D shape.

Q: Is a lightsaber more like a rapier or a pistol?

A?: Neither, as lightsabers are not real weapons.

[samplatt]

Pretending a problem doesn't exist just because it has indirect chemical reactions instead of direct chemical reactions is dangerously stupid.

[kstrauser]

Whew, sex and gambling addicts will be thrilled to learn they’re not actually addicts.

[ArloL]

What about gambling addiction?

[Ringz]

I think there are arguments for both sides, and it is far from being discussed since evidence suggests that excessive social media use can lead to behaviors resembling addiction. There are issues like depression, anxiety, and poor sleep [1][2][4]. It triggers brain responses similar to addictive substances, reinforcing compulsive use[5][8]. Some studies argue that it may not meet the clinical criteria for addiction[3][7].

There is need for further investigation

[1] Is social media bad for you? The evidence and the unknowns - BBC https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180104-is-social-media-... [2] Social Media Addiction Statistics - The Lanier Law Firm https://www.lanierlawfirm.com/social-media-addiction/statist... [3] Is social media addictive? 'Digital detox' study suggests not - Science https://www.science.org/content/article/social-media-addicti... [4] Research trends in social media addiction and problematic social ... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9707397/ [5] The Addictiveness of Social Media: How Teens Get Hooked https://www.jeffersonhealth.org/your-health/living-well/the-... [6] Our Social Media Addiction - Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2022/11/our-social-media-addiction [7] Special Report: Is Social Media Misuse A Bad Habit or Harmful ... https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2024.0... [8] Addictive potential of social media, explained - Stanford' SCOPE https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2021/10/29/addictive-potentia...

[weast]

What about gambling? Definitely addictive without the mechanisms you described above.

I have heard social media described as the attention slot machine.

[HenryBemis]

Yes and No.

Newspapers, Electricity (let's call this a platform), Radio, TV did not penetrate 99% (don't quote me on the number) of the planet's population. Social media did/does since 99% of the people can have a portable computer in their pockets.

(I am using '99%' very liberally - every person that can, has, and there are very few that avoid social media like the plague)

It feels like every next technology was had larger audience than the previous one (on its peak).

I remember a friend telling me about Instagram, and I was thinking 'how is this a good idea??' well, turns out it's not the best. And I fear that with Zuck becoming best friends with DJT he will eventually make his dream come true and make that 'instagram for pedophiles' (aka Instagram for kids). Then give it 10 years and let's see what DSM or ICD10 will say about that.

But hey.. money, amiright? Like the famous New Yorker cartoon about shareholders.

[RobinHirst11]

yes. In fact, its probably worse.

[nwhnwh]

Technofeudalism

[mitchbob]

https://archive.ph/ImFdw

[righthand]

That links to a paywall for me…