I don't think people want to ban social media, but they do want it to be controlled and subject to regulation in a similar although lesser degree to gambling.

You've just shifted your goalposts.

No, I restated a summary of my original post. Same goalposts. Same location.

I don't find that a consistent representation of your statements:

"Is having a conversation a chemical addiction?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16343850

"My point is, dopamine is addictive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16344356

This means your argument isn't over whether or not social media (or other dopaminagenic activities) are or aren't addictive. You've conceded that point. Which ryandrake had expressly rejected another two posts up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16342034

The question is whether or not they ought be regulated in some way.

I'd also focus far less on the specific mechanism (though gambling, drugs, social interactions, and A/B-tested sticky-on-page highly-habit-forming social media all do, as you've explicitly stated, rely on the same chemical mechanism), and instead, in the resultant behaviours.

I'm well aware that etymologies are neither clinical diagnostic tools nor necessary indications of present use. I still find them interesting in informing a discussion. And the etymology of "addiction" is a case in point:

c. 1600, "tendency, inclination, penchant" (a less severe sense now obsolete); 1640s as "state of being (self)-addicted" to a habit, pursuit, etc., from Latin addictionem (nominative addictio) "an awarding, a delivering up," noun of action from past participle stem of addicere "to deliver, award; devote, consecrate, sacrifice" (see addict (v.)). In the sense "compulsion and need to take a drug as a result of prior use of it" from 1906, in reference to opium (there is an isolated instance from 1779 with reference to tobacco).

https://www.etymonline.com/word/addiction

Yeah I don't actually care enough about this conversation to read your entire post, especially since you're pulling up dictionary definitions and shit. My original post said "getting positive reactions is addictive because of dopamine" and my follow up said "getting positive reactions is addictive because of dopamine".

Same point. Same goalposts. Same location. Feel free to disagree, but I know what I wrote.