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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

This article really points out that nearly anything can constitute an addictive substance, if abused. Which isn't a very novel observation, but it does make one wonder- what is it about modern society that leads to so many addictions? Why are we so stressed and depressed? Or is it just the availability of these substances makes it easier to self-soothe, whereas in the past people were too busy surviving or lived austerely so they had to meditate or embrace stoicism.

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Honestly, probably the atomisation of the individual. We're fundamentally a social species but our current cultural moment is very antisocial.

I think we have become detached from nature and all that it serves up. Open spaces, boredom, the purposefulness and purposelessness of all things... These are a few of the things we lose.

I suspect the millions of years have wired our brains to expect the ever-presence of nature, to feed on, rely on it. It is the world of the past century or so that we were not designed for.

I was somewhat surprised to see “gamification” on the SEC’s recent list of priorities:https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain?operation=OPER...

I think only part of it is all of our newfound free time and easy access. There’s definitely an element of companies “optimizing” for engagement though, too.

I think that's very specifically from people complaining about the confetti in the Robinhood app. I'm not sure it's that "gamified" otherwise - Robinhood simply has an easier to use UI than something like eTrade and Schwab which just love tables and have no information hierarchy.

I would argue that we're noticing mental health problems because in most cases survival is not an issue in modern society. This is not to claim mental health problems didn't exist prior but there was an interesting podcast about suicide and how it affects people more from good backgrounds that don't have the level of success that their peers have.

I assumed you were wrong that wealthier people would be more at risk for committing suicide, because this sounds like an interesting but believable bit of folklore trivia, but this study suggests you are right.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC26575/

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