Do we have the same for doomscrolling on TikTok, Instagram mimetic induced depression and ghosting in online dating?
These are the problems the new generation is contending with and there seems to be a massive trivialization of them. Sure you can try to regulate social media and take legal action, but we need more social support and collective recognition of these issues
Thomas Edison remarked that the drink helped him awake longer. Oh indeed, Mr. Edison. The point is that it was so normalized that nobody would have really appreciated the consequences of it, especially when everybody was using it. The same seems to be true now a days with social media. People are hopelessly addicted, most people claim it makes them feel worse - yet they keep using it, and so on.
We're just entering into a new era of the world with the introduction of new addictive and harmful activities with the novel catch that the harm is not immediately obvious, as compared with something like gambling.
The only reasonable response I can see here is that what I'm saying could also have been applied to any new technological toy, such as television or even radio in times past. But again the big difference is harm. Many if not most people might have said they should probably waste less time watching television, yet few would have claimed it was genuinely personally damaging to themselves - yet nonetheless being unable to stop. Let alone the consequences on society that are far more specific and real than the ambiguous concerns that undoubtedly followed previous technologies.
Put more succinctly, there is a difference between television and social media in the same way that there is a difference between caffeine and cocaine. At some point the consequences of an enjoyable recreation outweigh the benefits of that recreation.
Funny how the addiction is spelled out in the title, yet it is probably the most recognizable beverage name in the world.