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Comment by notepad0x90 | Hacker News Reader

Late in the thread, but is this really addiction?

How do you differentiate between addiction and people really liking something? In my opinion, unless people try to stop doing the thing but they can't will themselves to do that, it isn't an addiction.

It is not OK to dilute terms used to describe serious problems. I am not saying tech addiction can't happen, I just haven't seen any evidence to that effect. Mere dependency or development of a habit isn't addiction. addiction is those things plus inability to quit the habit despite strong and persistent effort.

Perhaps a good litmus test might be a person's ability to go on a week-long vacation without their phones, internet or whatever the supposed addiction might be.

There are addictions like Porn or eating-disorders that can be exasperated by tech, but they're not "technology usage" addictions, they're "addictions that can be enabled by technology".

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> addiction is [dependency] plus inability to quit the habit despite strong and persistent effort

> I am not saying tech addiction can't happen, I just haven't seen any evidence to that effect

Which planet do you live on? It's hard to read this in good faith.

Nobody has a "technology usage" addiction. The digital dopamine drip-feed in your pocket delivers by design in a way a spoon or double-entry bookkeeping does not, despite the fact that you can use the spoon to get high on a substance you traded for money.

It sound like you are well educated on the mechanics of addiction, using terms like "dopamine" as if that indicates addiction. People get dopamine from all sorts of every day activities and interactions, care to explain how that indicates addiction? If I exercise habitually (which gives tons of dopamine) do I have an addiction or just a habit I enjoy?

Did you know that even LSD/Acid has no biological/medical addiction property, but caffeine does? Addiction requires a literal rewiring of the brain at a biological level.

And please try to avoid the passive-aggressive "which planet do you live on" tone, it doesn't help with the whole civilized discussion thing on HN :)

the difference is simple, addiction is the compulsive/habitual action of something that does not have positive effects, more likely negative than neutral. For example, being "addicted" to gym is fine, because even if you enjoy the dopamine after, not the actual exercise, it's still good for you overall, and you cannot really overdo it. Caffeine makes you more productive, and you cannot really spiral, hence why caffeine is legal, but opioid drugs are not.

But for tech, scrolling tiktok for 5 hours a day, definitely does not have positive outcomes. It's like gambling. It's dopamine hit for dopamine hit's sake, and the delivery system is actively harming you.

If a person has a bad habit of needing to drink a bottle of beer and drive to work every day, would you call that an addiction or just a bad habit? I would call the drinking an addiction but the drinking-and-driving a bad habit.

Caffeine is a good example you mentioned, it is in fact addictive. It forms a chemical dependency similar to nicotine. Not all addictions are harmful and not all bad habits are addictions. The 'dependency' is what qualifies the habit as an addiction, in other words, you can't function or function well without the habit.

Empty comment from me but thank you for being more nuanced than most about what constitutes an addiction. It’s tiring to listen to the HN wringing in some performance of outrage of who can be the most offended yet least affected by the article.

(The moderator(s) are praised endlessly but have done a terrible job of steering the community. They’ve merely shut out voices that were the loudest and most disagreeable, a phyrric victory at best)

There are plenty of addictions where the incentive to stop never appears, and I wouldn't call those "not" addictions just because someone hasn't tried to stop or had a reason to.

Scientifically speaking, I would expect that pattern of habit to be studied, and for individuals to be unable to quit, and for actual electro-chemical rewiring of the brain (as nicotine,caffeine and harder drugs do) to be established.

Until then, why can't it just be called a habit? addiction very strongly implies inability to quit. Have you seen the 90's congressional testimony of tobacco CEO's all swearing on oath that Nicotine isn't addictive? That's how strong of a case you have to make for an addiction to be established. If you dilute the term and use it anonymously with "habit" then actual addictions can be dismissed or crooked people that facilitate addictions can avoid consequences.

At the very least, there needs to be a pattern of inability to quit the habit. Positive reinforcement signals are not in themselves indicators of addiction (case in point: LSD/Acid -- it isn't considered addictive, neither is good tasting food on its own).

I disagree, consider someone who is rich enough to afford a heroin addiction without ending up dead, in jail or institutionalized. They may never have a rock bottom that makes them question their use and try to stop. Their quality of life might drop, they may lose friends, family, business, etc, but they are insulated from the kinds of real pressures that force people without means to stop.

I would not say that person does not have an addiction. They are just as much of an addict as the person who shoots heroin and can't stop despite being broke, arrested for stealing, etc.

Addiction and mental illness tend to be defined by their impacts on people's quality of life and impact on functioning, whether that is just functioning basically, maintaining long-term healthy relationships or just being happy without substances.

In your example, I agree with you, they do have an addiction. It does not contradict with what I said. The person not needing to stop and their inability to stop if they tried are two different things. Heroin does form a chemical dependency, where it could even be life threatening to quite cold-turkey, and therefore it is addictive.

Unlike mental illness, addiction is defined by formation of a dependency. sometimes that dependency is at the biological/chemical level, sometimes it is a psychological dependency (can be caused by mental illness), not nevertheless a dependency must exist that prohibits the addict from functioning without the cause of the addiction. Bad habits can cause adverse impacts just as addictions can, and addictions (like coffee - which forms an actual biological rewiring/dependency, people get severe migraines when trying to quit it) can be harmless unless you're trying to quit.

I don't think this is correct. I believe the clinical definition of an addiction requires it to be actively harmful to your life - meaning, if you're "addicted" to something but it's good for you, it's not an addiction. Because the addiction part requires you doing something self-destructive.

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