Is social media more like cigarettes or junk food?

Re:Is social media more like cigarettes or junk food? by reedf1 on Thursday January 23, 2025 @01:44AM (#42801330)

I'm pretty sure all things you experience in this world can "directly biochemically alter the body". This isn't all that pedantic a point either. Your body directly produces neurochemicals from sense data, and, that includes the photons bouncing off of a like button, the particular movement of a scrolling finger, or the sonic vibration of a phone notification.

It wasn't so long ago that people balked at food addiction too. We are now in an era of mass A-B tested and optimised heuristics, the things we can do to manipulate the human brain are more understood.

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Re:Is social media more like cigarettes or junk food? by superkuh on Thursday January 23, 2025 @01:47AM (#42801355)

I mean there is the introduction of a chemical into the blood stream that acts on neurons. This does not happen with screens and speakers.

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Re:Is social media more like cigarettes or junk food? by djtango on Thursday January 23, 2025 @02:02AM (#42801453)

A father of a newborn child produces less testosterone...

From what I know this is not explained by just sleep deprivation. So here we have no direct chemical transfer altering the physiological state of a man via external stimulus.

So if a baby can chemically alter a father, why can't highly stimulating lights and sounds?

Many years back I had a pretty strong detox from smartphones and videogames lasting about 2 years. When I first played a mobile game, I was so stimulated by it I found it hard to sleep properly for the first few weeks of playing. Later on my brain adjusted but now I probably have some kind of habitual need for dopamine...

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