You can absolutely hate a thing you’re using and feel like quitting isn’t possible.
I’ve been told I’m not an addict. I’ve been told social media is addictive. I’ve been told I’m on social media. I’m rattling around the contradictions.
Addicts can also love the thing and not feel like quitting, because the thing they’re addicted to gives them a feeling of empowerment or a release from anxiety.
Social media fulfills a craving for socializing that humans naturally desire. It offers to fulfill this natural desire through a low-cost, easy-access interface. And it feeds this craving continuously, often artificially through synthetic interactions with no real counterparty. And it does so with the goal of influencing the audience’s understanding of the world and consumption habits, two things humans also natively seek.
Talking about social media like an addiction misses the core drive towards its adoptions and proliferation. You might as well say you’re addicted to food and air as to say you’re addicted to text and video. These are sensory stimulations everyone is always pining for, whether or not a phone screen is the delivery mechanism.
The challenge people face isn’t the social media, it is the absence of non-social media as an alternative. We’re caged animals looking out the window and you’re complaining about “window addiction”.
You’ve obviously never been an addict.
You can absolutely hate a thing you’re using and feel like quitting isn’t possible.
We could say that “hate” isn’t a complete accounting of the feelings in a complex situation, maybe.
Obviously.
I’ve been told I’m not an addict. I’ve been told social media is addictive. I’ve been told I’m on social media. I’m rattling around the contradictions.
Addicts can also love the thing and not feel like quitting, because the thing they’re addicted to gives them a feeling of empowerment or a release from anxiety.
Social media fulfills a craving for socializing that humans naturally desire. It offers to fulfill this natural desire through a low-cost, easy-access interface. And it feeds this craving continuously, often artificially through synthetic interactions with no real counterparty. And it does so with the goal of influencing the audience’s understanding of the world and consumption habits, two things humans also natively seek.
Talking about social media like an addiction misses the core drive towards its adoptions and proliferation. You might as well say you’re addicted to food and air as to say you’re addicted to text and video. These are sensory stimulations everyone is always pining for, whether or not a phone screen is the delivery mechanism.
The challenge people face isn’t the social media, it is the absence of non-social media as an alternative. We’re caged animals looking out the window and you’re complaining about “window addiction”.