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Comment by bogwog | Hacker News Reader

> Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing.

What makes you say that? It's well known that the addictive patterns in these apps trigger dopamine the same way drugs do. In a sense, dopamine is the "chemical substance" central to the addiction. Heroine and algorithms are just different ways to get it.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-pot...

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Everything you do “triggers dopamine”. Reading HN triggers dopamine. Eating breakfast triggers dopamine. Dopamine is also important for movement and many other things.

This is a lame reduction of brain chemistry that has been used to push agendas. Dopamine is not equivalent do addiction.

> calls it a lame reduction of brain chemistry

> posts a lame reduction of the argument

Argument was literally that “social media triggers dopamine” which was supposed to imply something else.

Stop trying to say “dopamine” when you really mean to refer to a behavioral problem.

> Argument was literally that “social media triggers dopamine”

It wasn't though? They said

> the addictive patterns in these apps trigger dopamine the same way drugs do

(emphasis mine)

> Dopamine is not equivalent do addiction.

What about porn, sex, and gambling addiction, which are all un-boosted dopamine addictions?

It's well known, but I'm not convinced it's true. Dopamine levels are measurable by blood test, and some drug abuse studies perform that measurement. Why does the literature on social media and dopamine exclusively talk in vague and general terms, rather than pointing to specific studies where researchers measured dopamine before and after 30 minutes of TikTok scrolling?

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