> At a certain point it's a parent's duty to limit destructive addictions. And these social media networks and games are made to be extremely addictive, companies spend billions of dollars on this goal.

Yes, I agree. I actually typed out a bit about my own experience with playing Gameboy at 10 and comparing it to drinking and partying at 21, but I didn't end up appending it to my comment.

It's one of those things that parents don't get--modern stuff (video games, social media) is like heroin for kids. You can't just give them "an hour of heroin time" per week and then expect them to think about anything else for the periods of time you suspend them from it.

When I was younger, I could think about playing Donkey Kong Country for literal days at a time. I'd imagine levels in my head, draw pictures, stare at old video game ads, hum the music to myself, and once I made a cardboard Gameboy and pretended to play it to scratch the itch. My life was measured as blocks of time in between playing DKC. My parents didn't get how single-minded I was and thought that by "restricting it" they could redirect my attention to other, more wholesome things. Impossible. I am so thankful I didn't have unlimited internet access or Fortnite when I was younger.

I'm thinking there should be a new term for these kind of addictions to activities that remained socially acceptable for decades despite globalization and increased media scrutiny. Saying that you "watch videos" or "play video games" can now have drastically different implications based on the unstated degree of the activity. And some degrees of these activities have been gradually distorted beyond recognition from their counterparts in the 80's and 90's when nobody asked the question of how much was enough. Actual hard drugs were never going to gain mainstream acceptance because they're addictive and destructive by their physical nature. In contrast, a "game you can't put down" can be interpreted as a piece of critical acclaim for an indie developer or a dire alarm for the guardians of the consumers.

It is a sobering thought to hypothesize that, due to incentives beyond our control, the most earnest and hard-working creative minds inadvertently feed the addictions of millions of people. Whenever I look at the view counts of a successful creator, I have to wonder what percentage of the people behind those views specifically asked to be shown the content.

Having been subjected to strict time limits on electronics when I was growing up, they didn't do much except to make me a more bitter person. As an adult I now spend the majority of my time on a computer. I don't consider myself addicted to personal computers specifically, but that is what's most sinister about addictions such as these - it's a socially acceptable drug that still changes some peoples' lives for the better, and is in some cases necessary to participate in modern society. That acts as a mental wedge to excuse the addictive parts that aren't yet held to the same standard to other addictions on a whole - "watching videos" or "playing video games".

I have to wonder if it's something intrinsic to human nature that leads people down pathways such as these. Many kinds of media feed on our curiosity, which we're taught is an important virtue growing up. And I think curiosity tends to motivate us to find better and more effective ways at succeeding, such as developing and shipping a game that receives critical acclaim and breaks sales records. But soon we might have to start judging ourselves on metrics besides how successful we are, if success is based on how well our thoughts can capture the hearts and minds and attention spans of the world population.

What is with the nonstop comparison of video games to hard drugs? There is no basis for comparing an activity of a person to the administration of chemicals that directly affect the physical and mental state of someone.

Under this train of thought, the following activities could be considered "addictions" for me

1. Getting up in the morning

2. Making breakfast

3. Going to work

4. Spending time with friends

5. Walking around the neighborhood

6. Going to the park

7. Riding my bicycle

8. Working on my house

9. Lifting weights

I could list many more things, but I think I have made my point. You tell me I can't do any of those things and I'm going to be very upset. The only difference is that as an adult I realize there are other things I can seek out as alternative activities. I also fundamentally _more_ activities than most children. Take away all of what I just listed and I am going to be exceptionally irate. Is there any individual in society which we expect to tolerate a removal of almost all of the activities in their life which they selected? Even prisoners get access to a library to prepare their own legal defense or educate themselves as they see fit.

Children have nearly zero autonomy in the US nowadays, the opportunity to participate in an interactive world (even a single player city building game for example) is one of the limited times they have a high level of autonomy. Suggesting that those activities are equivalent to hard drug addiction is facetious.

Have you ever done hard drugs?

Edit: This is being downvoted; if someone wanted to disagree, they could respond and say "yes, I have both done hard drugs and played superstimulating video games as a nine-year-old, and there's no comparison".

I have done both, and I think the comparison is valid.