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A comment on Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case. Parent comment

Re:Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media... by hnlmorg on Thursday March 26, 2026 @03:43AM (#47527681)
I’m not a doctor but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

Substances like caffeine, sugar, and painkillers are definitely still referred to as “addictive”.

Whereas substances like sertraline (antidepressant) are referred to as a “dependence” because it’s dangerous to discontinue abruptly (as you said) but there isn’t any psychological addiction involved.

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Re:Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media... by rimunroe on Thursday March 26, 2026 @07:10PM (#47537039)
To elaborate, I think experts usually use these terms as follows: an addiction is something where you have a continuous and difficult to resist drive to keep doing/using something due to it being inherently rewarding. A dependence is something where if you stop regularly doing/using something you’ll experience some sort of withdrawal.
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