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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

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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?

If you believe in "Junk food addiction" then you have the same problem. Trusting for-profit gurus and hip informal internet magazines instead of the available peer reviewed evidence.

Gambling addiction is not in the DSM-V, it's gambling disorder, and it's grandfathered in as the only behavioral disorder of it's kind.

> 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)

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.

I mean there is the introduction of a chemical into the blood stream that acts on neurons. This does not happen with screens and speakers.

A father of a newborn child produces less testosterone...

From what I know this is not explained by just sleep deprivation. So here we have no direct chemical transfer altering the physiological state of a man via external stimulus.

So if a baby can chemically alter a father, why can't highly stimulating lights and sounds?

Many years back I had a pretty strong detox from smartphones and videogames lasting about 2 years. When I first played a mobile game, I was so stimulated by it I found it hard to sleep properly for the first few weeks of playing. Later on my brain adjusted but now I probably have some kind of habitual need for dopamine...

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.

> cause a biochemical reaction in the brain?

That's rather meaningless.

I don't think there's much of anything you can look at, or do, or think about, without brain activity being somehow involved. What with the brain being where thoughts live.

I mean there is the introduction of a chemical into the blood stream that acts on neurons. This does not happen with screens and speakers. It is not meaningless. In fact it's a super important distinction.

By pretending that multimedia can directly alter someone's behavior you throw out the entire idea of human volition. Even if it were true on some level our entire legal code and indeed western society is based on the idea of humans making choices and being responsible for them. Unless they're directly altered like with psychocative chemicals (and sometimes even then). The stimuli you see and hear are not drugs and regulating them as drugs will do more harm and cause more use of force then it prevents.

> I mean there is the introduction of a chemical into the blood stream that acts on neurons. This does not happen with screens and speakers.

What are the actual mechanics behind how scary movies make people jumpy? Or behind news articles pushing people to "I'm literally shaking" levels of anger? Or to stick with the theme from ancestor comments, behind the thing I've heard called "post-nut clarity" (whatever it's actual proper name is)?

I’m going to try with a counter argument here that might seem trivial at first but encourage you to think a bit more deeply on it.

Multimedia consumption does directly alter your behavior.

You see an add for fries and you want fries and you go out and buy and eat them. If you hadn’t watched that video you wouldn’t have done that. Yes, it was still your choice to do so (avoiding the question of free will), but it was also the choice of the addict to shoot up one more time. Seeing the burger introduced psychoactive chemicals (endogenous ones): dopamine is one of the most relevant and well understood.

And to be clear - it’s not unique because it’s related to food and therefor a substance you put into your body like a drug. As others have pointed out gambling and porn addictions rely on similar mechanisms, and doom scrolling/compulsive news checking are tied to the same chemical mechanisms in the body.

From a medical perspective this is pretty well understood. Social expectations and norms that feed into regulations and laws are wildly subjective, so it’s not surprising that there is a lot of inconsistency in how and what is regulated and illegal when looked at from the perspective of biological mechanisms.

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.

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

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

What about gambling addiction?

You'll find it's actually "gambling disorder" and it's the only behavioral disorder of it's type grandfathered in to the DSM.

What is gambling? Does it need to involve money? What is money? Money is a human invention.

So is gambling about resources, power and status? If so then can gambling CS skins count? What about candy crush lootboxes?

If gambling is about risk, does parkour and base jumping count?

One of the most insidious forms of "gambling" I've seen is probably PvP matchmaking. I am fairly certain that games from Supercell have rigged their matchmaking to engineer a degree of frustration to keep you hooked. When you tie that to a ranking ladder it can get quite easy to get hooked

Cool story, homosexuality was a mental illness according to your Bible at some point...

Almost as if science was a fluid thing, almost as if we updated our knowledge as we go, almost as if this was only possible through debating opposing views, very weird....

But you're probably right we should stop even thinking about it, the DSM doesn't talk about it so why would we

I guess you're ignoring the part where this has been a highly studied issue over and over and found lacking.

Perhaps this right here is the very process of thinking about it.

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...

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

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

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.

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