Item — HN Reader

> But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers.

The problem with analogies to things like cheeseburgers, gambling, drugs, cigarettes, etc., is:

1. Availability -- you have to go somewhere to acquire/participate in these things*

2. Cost -- you have to have money to spend. That is, it's not something you can consume/participate in for free -- you have to have money to spend.

* Gambling is theoretically freely available via gambling apps. But still comes at a cost.

With social media, anybody can do it for unlimited amounts of time, and for free. All you need is a phone/laptop/desktop with internet access -- which nearly every person on the planet has.

Addiction + Free + Widely available = Destruction

2 comments

To your points I would add the following difference between TikTok on the one hand and cheeseburgers, drugs, cigarettes, etc. on the other.

3. Targeting -- even under the (debatable) premise that they are intentionally designed to be addictive, cheeseburgers, drugs and cigarettes do not actively target each addict by optimising their properties to their individual addiction.

If I am addicted to smoking, the tobacco industry does indeed try to keep me hooked, among other things by offering me many flavours and alternatives. However, the cigarettes I personally consume are not constantly adjusting their formula, appearance and packet design specifically to satisfy my tastes and desires.

Yes. Target the algorithms, not the method of delivery. Hacker news also counts as social media, but here we all are seeing the same feed on the same site with minimal (if not zero) tracking to try and extract info from the audience.

Even a first step of requiring transparency in the algorithms would quickly shatter this stronghold on people's minds.

Indeed. In fact, you may notice I explicitly left out gambling from the list of 'non targeted' addictions. The reason for that is that the delivery methods for gambling cover the whole gamut from zero to fully personalised targeting, and I didn't want that to distract from the point.

Don't forget the most important part. Attempting to opt-out means social exclusion for a vast majority of the population.

case in point: lots of places have lots of restrictions (either through legislation or just industry norms, usually a combination of both) about advertising for alcohol or tobacco.

And those efforts seem effective to me, at least anecdotally. I don't feel particularly bad about those restrictions either.

nooo those restrictions aren't perfect. And if it's not perfect then it needs to be abolished! /s

So what you're saying is that we should ban porn then?

No, they saying it (and other things) should be regulated (it is)

Social media companies are also regulated, but we are talking about whether social media companies should be liable for creating addictive content when porn has the same qualities of being easily available and free.

Yes

agree