This is an outrageously dumb thing to say. BIg Tobacco knowingly sold a product that physically addicted (the only real form of addiction) its users and killed them.
Facebook is not that.
Facebook is not that.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26318318221116042
snippet from the abstract
> Contrary to the earlier notion that addiction is predominantly a substance dependency, research now suggests that any source or experience capable of stimulating an individual has addictive potential. This has led to a paradigm shift in the psychiatric understanding of behavioural addictions.
dopamine, the little “hit” you get on social media sites or when you get a “ping”, has a massive role to play in behavioural addictions. and with behavioural addiction it basically causes the same stuff in the brain that cocaine etc does (very simplified explanation).
also, i’m a recovering drug addict. and i can tell you for sure from my lived experience that addiction is definitely not limited to physical stuff like drugs. xD
Addiction isn't just [chemical in blood stream] -> [addiction]. Addiction involves many steps, many of them in the brain, and many of those reactive to non-physical events.
gonna need a citation on that one, dawg
Plus, smoking doesn't kill people; its pathological outcomes do. Similarly, looking at a phone screen might hurt a user's eyes, but it won't kill them; however, the decisions that user makes over time due to the effects of the subject matter they interact with might definitely put them at risk. And if aspects of that subject matter are deliberately amplified for their addictive properties, should platforms be regulated to control this?