Meta's Zuckerberg faces questioning at youth addiction trial
reuters.com
reuters.com
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2
>The present research (N = 1204) explored the implications of overusing the addiction label. In Study 1, a national quota sample of Instagram users (N = 380) overestimated their addiction to the app, and those who perceived themselves as more addicted (but not more habitual) experienced less ability to control their use. We show that the perception of addiction likely arises from popular media’s frequent labeling of social media as addictive (vs. habit forming). Study 2 (N = 824) demonstrated experimentally that framing frequent Instagram use as an addiction has deleterious consequences for user self-efficacy, including reducing perceived control over social media use and increasing self-blame for overuse. In addition, misperceiving excessive social media use as addictive potentially diverts users from effective strategies that could be used to curb overuse habits.
Over half the population lacks the self stewardship to not eat themselves into being a fat pig. If “user-agency” was any sort of solution, I wouldn’t be paying for the negative externalities of all you fat fucks.
Shifting responsibility typically justifies outcomes rather than making meaningful change. It resolves the cognitive dissonance between a negative outcome and inaction.
If one is actually interested in improving the negative result, it doesn't matter what their personal relation to the cause is. The process is simple: make meaningful change to to the system that causally proceeds the outcome.
In your example of obesity, personal responsibility is meaningless if one's goal is to decrease it.
Same with the negative effects of social media. If you care about the consequences, personal responsibility's only effect is to make one ok with inaction.
1. Intended
You can use the same reasoning on smoking too. Or any other drugs.
I am currently trying to get rid of my dependence, almost an addiction on Reddit. And nothing has been working, except blocking Reddit on DNS level in my router for all devices and all browsers equally. And even then I will write "reddit" into address bar several times a day to get no response from browser. Like a gambler pulling a slot machine which is not connected to power.
At least we have the knowledge (and introspection) to work towards stopping this behavior.
Also this place is just orange Reddit. It’s no better than Reddit.
Most Reddit user experiences are probably nothing like HN at all. Give r/all a whirl if you think they’re comparable.
Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony