It's like saying we have a driving addiction or a going to work addiction. Not everything can or should be couched in that kind of language. I've always found articles about internet and game addiction to be incredibly myopic, assuming that the "normal" of the 60's or 70's or 80's is somehow universal or worthy of being preserved, and that any deviation from it is an illness.
I understand what you're saying. Still though, you drive to get places or for fun sometimes, some people do it for sport for a living, but you don't find yourself just compulsively driving 8 hours a day. There are people that do find themselves staring at a phone 8 hours a day. The word addiction might be thrown around a little too loosely than it should be, but there's definitely widespread addiction to social media. I find it comparable to couch potatoes that sit down and watch TV all day.
Staring at a phone doing what? Swiping to refresh on social media for hours and hours at a time?
Using a phone is like going to the library, what you do there is what actually matters. Checking social media can be thought of as asking a librarian what new books are in. If you're asking every minute of every hour for 8 hours, then I can see that being a problem. But that's not really how people use the phone. You check email, you read news articles, you look at posts from friends on fb or instagram, you interact with people in a comments section, you take or share pictures, you have music or video essays playing to help you focus on work, you message coworkers, coordinate a meetup in a group chat, among other things.
I don't find it comparable to being a couch potato and watching TV all day. That analogy falls apart because watching TV isn't an interactive exercise.
>Staring at a phone doing what? Swiping to refresh on social media for hours and hours at a time?
Yes, for the technologically-not-literate people that I know, Internet = social media, and they totally spend every waking hour refresh the page to see "what's new". I used to do that on reddit.
>check email, you read news articles, you look at posts from friends on fb or instagram, you interact with people in a comments section, you take or share pictures, you have music or video essays playing to help you focus on work, you message coworkers, coordinate a meetup in a group chat, among other things.
Half of this thing are mental garbage, the other half are FOMO and outrage economy, so not doing them may result in a positive outcome.
I agree with you that escapism with tech can be more than a bad habit and it can take your attention away from things that would be more productive in the long term. However I don't know if I agree that it's a compulsion the way you'd think it with traditional addiction. If a friend you haven't talked to in a while suddenly came over to hang out, would you sit there and continue doom scrolling?
I also should clarify that I don't categorize reddit as social media because it's generally not people I know. I would consider fb, insta, snapchat as social media but not YouTube, reddit, or even here.
This reminds more of somewhere in between. Like stumbleupon but with a comment section where you can discuss things.
I am only differentiating because I believe the motivation for refreshing news aggregation sites vs social media is different. There's a much higher sense of urgency and importance when it's news. What you find interesting is also different between social media and news.
I think having a catch all term of being on the phone is not productive in helping people understand when the use of technology becomes unhealthy. Calling technology use unhealthy or even an addiction based on the perception of how long you spend is meaningless.
I agree that for some people using technology less would be positive, most often because they stop using technology to escape and ignore their responsibilities.
I don't know how fair it is to say it's garbage, some people like watching terrible films, some watch reality tv, some like video games, some like learning baseball stats, some like collecting NFTs, some like following twitter drama, I personally enjoy this kind of discourse on HN. How people choose to spend their time and what they enjoy is up to them.
I don't personally believe in the idea that constant stimulation is a bad thing as long as my responsibilities are taken care of. But I also have adhd so I don't know if everyone would share that sentiment.
Addiction exists, though. I often browse Twitter for no particular reason. Six months ago I changed my year of birth for something like 2017 because I was annoyed it was compulsory. That resulted in an immediate suspension, as Twitter forbids minors to use it (rightfully so); the suspension would only be lifted if I submitted an ID.
At first I thought "who cares?" But then I found myself in want of browsing the (few) people I follow, and eventually did submit an ID to have my account restored.
I get nothing out of Twitter. Absolutely zero value. Still, apparently, I can't live without it. That's a problem.
> I get nothing out of Twitter. Absolutely zero value. Still, apparently, I can't live without it. That's a problem.
Knowing nothing about you, the way this sentence is put is the most disturbing part. If you can’t live without it, at least it fills a hole in your life and that’s as much value as you could expect from anything.
How many things do you do in a day where you can put a crystal clear value on it? I mean, I’m writing this and I’d be hard press to come with a valuation, and I also don’t think it matters much if I don’t find any.
If looking at Twitter reduced your life expectancy by 25% we’d look at it differently, but from your description it doesn’t feels so.
Life expectancy isn’t the only metric we should care about. Life satisfaction is arguably more important.
…as I sit here on my phone at 1 am, responding to comments on HN for no particular reason other than worthless internet points, I guess, moderately depressed and anxious, despite having an objectively pretty great life.
The addiction isn't to twitter. You feel like you will miss out on some important information if your access to twitter is blocked. You aren't browsing for no reason, while browsing a part of you has decided this is the best use of that time. Whatever else is going on isn't important enough to care about more than you care about seeing if there's new tweets.
If the people you follow stopped posting on twitter at the same time you changed your birthday, would you have cared about getting it restored? Valuing and caring about tweets people have sent isn't the same as being addicted to twitter. Maybe the problem is how much you value seeing those tweets the moment they are tweeted.
I browse directly to the accounts of the few people I still want to follow, and refuse to log in or use the general feed. There’s a nagging pop-up demanding that you log in if you try to click away into a retweeted thread these days, so that helps keep me from getting sucked into the rabbit hole. Maybe that can help for you.
