Can we stop calling this addiction? The DSM V doesnt recognize process addictions, with the exception of Gambling Disorder, and many of the symptoms don't apply to social media use. Even Internet addiction wasn't included for lack of proof.
Substance Use Disorder (the new category for chemical addictions) has specifics such as withdrawal and physical dependency that you don't get from turning off your Facebook account.
Facebook is a habit that many people user too much. It isn't like a drug that has drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain. Your brain isn't literally hijacked anymore than TV or anything you like doing hijacks your brain. It reacts fairly normally actually.
Optimizing for somebody to use a site a lot isn't addicting people. The abuse of terminology has gone too far and is really clouding the discussion.
Besides what would it look like to not "optimize for addiction"? Give people news stories they don't want to read? The conversation has just gone off the rails when it starts to be compared to cocaine and heroin.
DSM was last updated in 2013. When companies are employing psychologists to analyze user behavior and employ techniques that exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize with the goal of attaining a similar outcome, I think we can call that "optimizing for addiction".
These new techs do not "exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize" in any meaningful sense. Everything positive from learning to driving to reading a book has a similar effect and it is going beyond rational discussion to try to argue FB and drugs are the same or even similar.
Actually, yes, it does induce "drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain". This is well documented. The Shallows despite some of its faults, is excellent in this regard, with a bibliography that stretches pages. There was a CBS piece months ago detailing precisely this.
What i mean by drastic and rapid change is like how drugs affect the brain. We have no evidence that happens, and a lot that says it doesn't. Except for gambling, process addictions have been removed from the dsm because of a lack of evidence that shows addiction in the typical clinical sense.
And for those that really literally compare fb to illegals drugs, they're complete idiots not to be taken seriously. It is so far divorced from every bit of evidence we have, i think they are more trying to push a particular narrative.
Substance Use Disorder (the new category for chemical addictions) has specifics such as withdrawal and physical dependency that you don't get from turning off your Facebook account.
Facebook is a habit that many people user too much. It isn't like a drug that has drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain. Your brain isn't literally hijacked anymore than TV or anything you like doing hijacks your brain. It reacts fairly normally actually.
Optimizing for somebody to use a site a lot isn't addicting people. The abuse of terminology has gone too far and is really clouding the discussion.
Besides what would it look like to not "optimize for addiction"? Give people news stories they don't want to read? The conversation has just gone off the rails when it starts to be compared to cocaine and heroin.