Study Finds Social Media Harder To Resist Than Cigarettes, Alcohol 134
An anonymous reader writes "Checking a Twitter, Facebook or email account for updates may be more tempting than alcohol and cigarettes, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people regulate their daily desires. Researchers also found that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges than certain drug addictions, people are more likely to give in to their addiction to use social or other types of media."
best not to start... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is what my mom told me about alcohol and tobacco.
Re:best not to start... (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt she was referring to making friends.
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Internet "friends" are such just in name.
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That is true when you're trying to make your friend count go up. Try doing it right, instead.
slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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You don't get e-mail notification of new replies?
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He could be checking email and rss...
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Re:MEETING (Score:5, Funny)
The Social Media Twelve Steps
We admitted we were powerless over social media - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a better broadband connection can restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a All Knowing Server Admin as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless inventory of our posts.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our spulling erroz.
Were entirely ready to have The Next Thing Better Than Facebook remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Customer Service to remove our drunken posts.
Made a list of all persons we have stalked, and became willing to block them all.
Avoided making direct amends to such people wherever possible because it pretty much looks like even more stalking.
Continued to hide our personal baggage and when we were wrong to rise above the desire to ragequit.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with cute kittens as we understood Them, praying only for the power to not forward it.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to social media addicts, and to practice these principles in all our status updates.
Re:MEETING (Score:5, Funny)
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Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a All Knowing Server Admin as we understood Him.
... all knowing proxy firewall admin ...
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our spulling erroz.
That would be the almighty GOOG not "God" admittedly those two are often confused. Also thats spulling erroz and the even more pitiful "txt talk".
A set of Lovecraftian rituals to worship the mighty GOOG is kind of amusing to contemplate. Maybe I've been reading too much Stross lately.... That would probably get me an instant C+D order, but sometimes fanfic just has to be done regardless...
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Cause all my AA meetings are on Facebook!!!
I wonder if any Parole Officers meet there?
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We have ours at the bar. Of course, we're a group who believe in the phrase "only losers quit, and only quitters lose."
Bartenders, pour us another round!
They're putting in wifi, so we can check Slashdot and Facebook while we drink and smoke. Put a couple cots in the back, and we'll never leave.
Gotta run, it's time for the 2pm shot contest.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean that social media will now be the blame for all the evils of society? Finally replacing D&D, and "violent video games."
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So movies and music are off the hook since RIAA and MPAA members don't know how to adapt?
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
Does this mean that social media will now be the blame for all the evils of society? Finally replacing D&D, and "violent video games."
Nope, it now means it will be taxed like tobacco and alcohol.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean that social media will now be the blame for all the evils of society? Finally replacing D&D, and "violent video games."
Man, don't give them ideas. Busybodies never seem to be busy enough.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-- C.S. Lewis
Usually that phony Puritannical "morality" is most visible when the subject is drugs, pornography, or controversial speech. At least on the Internet this sort of typecast personality is really going to have a hell of a time trying to enforce it, but still, I'd rather not see them try. I'd rather they do something more worthy of their limited time on this planet, like uproot their desire to run other peoples' lives by recognizing it as more evil than anything they'd rail against. Then maybe, just maybe, they can find their own fulfillment and witness the way that really living your own life magically takes away your undue concern for how others live theirs.
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No, desire for interacting with others not addiction. The technophobes are just jealous
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I don't understand why anyone compares the internet and social media to addiction.
Understand that one of the hallmarks of addiction is the process of fulfilling the addiction is overwhelming and interferes with other aspects of an individual's life. If you spend every waking moment trying to obtain your next 'fix', whatever that may be, then you suffer from an addiction.
In the fairly recent past, I have had to terminate employees due to sneaking phones into work so they could hide and play with Facebook. I even fired one when I walked into my locked office, the door had been jimmie
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No (Score:2)
It will be added to the list. There's always more room for more needlessly vilified social habits.
Don't forget Ozzy. He was the devil, you know. (Score:2)
Don't forget to blame Ozzy. He was a pet whipping boy for the "evils of society" a few years ago, too.
And dancing. Dancing is bad, m'kay?
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean that social media will now be the blame for all the evils of society?
That's been done so much its a laughable cliche now... kind of like we laughed at them blaming DnD and video games but they just continued to babble it for years after most people laughed at them.
Check out any stereotypical "cops n robbers" night time drama where the bad guy did something bad to the victim after doing some kind of social media thing, the message being FB is dangerous but watching our TV show is both safe, entertaining, and makes you superior to being a victim and you get to blame the victim for "doing the wrong thing" (not watching TV addictively). Check out any stereotypical daytime talk show (the now retired Oprah must have done 100 shows about this, also see her buddy Dr Phil) with endless hour long explanations of how their unstable kid/husband/housepet/whatever would never have gone over the edge if it were not for FB/twitter/etc. A decade ago they would have gone over the edge due to video games, a decade before that due to DnD, a decade before that due to Elvis's hips or something.
Its such a tired cliche, and so much of the audience is already addicted, that now they aggressively support twitter / FB. It would make an interesting google ngram graph, were such a thing possible, to graph daytime talk shows with one line being "social media scare stories" and the other line being "FB and twitter product placement / social media self promotional links".
Its an interesting model for other activities. Once you get around 50% of the population to smoke weed, then suddenly, in a matter of weeks, Oprah/Dr Phil/CSI will phase shift from weed being the root of all evil to it being the greatest thing on earth and why not try our celebrity branded strain...
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Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
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Back when I waited tables in a restaurants to pay for college, I can promise you me and the other servers were not taking Facebook breaks outside the back door.
yeah but phones, much less the internet, didn't even exist back then ;)
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This information is pointless without a time-frame. Was this in the 70's? Was it last week?
Just the other day I saw at least a dozen people who should have been working who were messing with their phones. How's that for anecdotal evidence!
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Funny)
Was there supposed to be a smiley on that, or have you been stuck in the basement THAT long?
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Back when I waited tables in a restaurants to pay for college, I can promise you me and the other servers were not taking Facebook breaks outside the back door.
Maybe this is about to change now that we have smartphones and mobile broadband/4G.
Re:Disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why? I don't see how trying to distract oneself while doing a mindless job means addiction.
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It's not just "working retail." I see the same addiction in over half the people I know that have "smart phones."
It's a perverse need to be "constantly connected" that's at fault, a hunt for instant and perpetual little hits of gratification.
"Oh, look, someone liked/modded-up/viewed what I said!"
There's a REASON I don't use page counters on any of my websites where they aren't mandated. I don't want to find myself being more worried about page counts and phrasing things to boost page counts rather
Huh? What? Er... uh,,, oh... (Score:4, Funny)
I can not press "submit" on this post. Really. I *can* not press submit. Really I can....
Tax the hell out of social media and then see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tax the hell out of social media and then see.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tax the hell out of social media and then see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a money game, not politicians trying to help people.
As a douchebag politician you get to stand in front of everyone with a straight face and say it's because those vices are bad for you and you want to discourage it. What you're really doing is using addictions to collect massive amounts of revenue. Even better, nobody can argue with you, or they're some monster supporting alcohol and nicotine addiction.
This is why a $3 pack of cigarettes in a major city can cost $12, while people still smoke.
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Correlation does not imply causation. The smokers and drinkers among the working poor fuck themselves.
Targeting one group is not an implicit targeting of another, loosely correlated, group. To suggest that sin taxes are taxes on the working poor is to suggest that either (1) the working poor are predisposed to smoking, drinking and gambling; or (2) that smokers, drinkers and gamblers are predisposed to being poor.
A tax on cell phone service is not a tax on cancer patients; [xkcd.com] tough on drugs is not tough o
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that smokers, drinkers and gamblers are predisposed to ...
predisposed to addictive behavior, which (inevitably?) leads to poverty.
Let me propose a science experiment. Past evidence indicates an insane high correlation between smoking, drinking, and gambling... simply walk thru a casino and look around... My hypothesis is that a modern casino either is full of people checking their FB status on their smartphone, or there are preconditions that prevent it like installation of phone jammers, or a posted rule that phones are not allowed to prevent cheating or card c
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A sin tax error...
Whoosh (Score:2)
I think that was grandparent poster's point: if people stop using social media because it's taxed, it clearly isn't as addictive as alcohol and tobacco.
There is, of course, a slight problem with this. Unless you put in a lot of effort to make your own, you'll have to pay for the alcohol and tobacco anyway, so adding taxing increases the cost by a non-infinite proportion.
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Yes, I'm sure taxing users to access slashdot will go down well. I doubt it would have much effect on traffic either.
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yeah right. even if it was less than 1 cent per post, the government wouldn't know what to do with all the money that would generate.
Best advice to follow... (Score:3)
... don't join:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6611967/not-google-plus [collegehumor.com]
"Addiction"?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The pretense behind this study seems rather shallow. "Social media" is really nothing more than a way for people to keep in touch with friends and family. I can go to ONE website and see how my daughter, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends are doing. It's very convenient. And yes, I check it throughout the day. If that's an "addiction", it's a pretty good one to have.
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That was my though exactly. This is really stupid. "People need food, if they are deprived of it for awhile, they will go to amazing lengths to get it, sacrificing all kinds of important stuff!". Well, learning that social connections are nearly as important as food or water is really no surprise at all.
If the study author has a problem with people's chosen forms of maintaining those social connections, maybe a study comparing and contrasting those might be in order. But to state "Oh, people go to amazing l
Re:"Addiction"?? (Score:4, Informative)
about as insightful as noting that starving people crave food.
It's profoundly insightful when you notice people failing to eat (or hold down a job so they can eat) because they're too hung up on Facebook. Any time you have a strong drive that's possible. Most people can control it; some fail and become addicts.
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And yes, I check it throughout the day. If that's an "addiction", it's a pretty good one to have.
That's not an addiction. An addiction is when the drive to do something is so strong that you can't stop it, even when you recognize that it's displacing other important things like showing up for work, sleeping, eating, and spending time with family.
Your use of social social media : social media addiction :: a glass of wine with dinner : alcoholism
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Not at all. Addiction is simply letting something become such a big part of your life that "normal" activities and interests suffer or are abandoned.
It's VERY possible to be addicted to the internet, to forums, to chat, to texting, to gambling, etc.
You don't need a physical addiction as with heroin or meth to suffer the negative effects of being an addict.
e.g. If your boss fires you for texting/smart-phone-surfing on the job, how is that different than being fired for being caught with a mickey of a
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yes please (Score:2)
Awesome (Score:3)
LOL, not immune from pointless /. posting (Score:4, Informative)
/. is an addiction.
Re:LOL, not immune from pointless /. posting (Score:5, Funny)
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Ha! It's easy to quit. I've done it hundreds of times!
(adapted from a Mark Twain quote.)
Sleep? (Score:5, Funny)
So sleeping is an addicting activity and anyone doing is just giving into a base desire?
Don't know why this study did not include breathing, I know some air addicts that cannot stop breathing for more then a minute. They are so addicted they even do it in their sleep.
Re:Sleep? (Score:5, Funny)
I hear the withdrawal effects with air are even worse than with heroin.
The question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
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As with cigarettes or alcohol, It really depends on the degree of addiction.
Lots of people really spend their day in social media. I agree it is probably fun, but does it lead somewhere in the long run? If you notice in ten or twenty years that you got nowhere basically because you spent your time chatting, blogging, and posting stuff in facebook - then it might well be a very destructive addiction.
No surprise (Score:1)
Narcissism is a powerful force, as is "sense of belonging" 2 things FB feeds quite well regardless of the reality.
Sleep is optional? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sleep is pretty hard to resist. If you don't do it, you die.
Not really the same as cigarettes?
And at times... (Score:1)
What? (Score:5, Interesting)
After using Facebook for 3 years I recently deleted my account.
They require you to wait 14 days before the actual cancellation takes place, maybe most people who try to resist to the temptation to use FB are felled by this grace period.
It obviously acts as a secure way to make deletions, in case someones account is hacked, but still.
Please... (Score:2)
Fuck (Score:5, Funny)
Sinfully tempting... not a leading cause of death! (Score:1)
Yes, social is addicting. Should it still be vilified? Last time I checked, you can't die from it (fringe serial killers aside)!!
you forgot (Score:1)
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Welcome to the latest .ca (Score:2)
Crackbook Anonymous.
Except I don't want to resist booze (Score:2)
Except I don't want to resist booze.
Now excuse me while I grab a shot.
Reality vs a glass Facade (Score:1)
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The relationships you have on Facebook can be real, it depends entirely how you use it. My friend just recently posted about his dog dying and he got several dozen supportive comments, YMMV. My Facebook friends are pretty much all friends IRL, so they do really care.
No harm (Score:2)
People are more likely to give in to ordinary things which have no negative side-effects than harddrugs?
Who would have thought.
In completely unrelated news, people are more likely to masturbate than murder.
... and? (Score:2)
From TFS:
people are more likely to give in to their addiction to use social or other types of media
It may be simply because they're less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, so there's less reason to resist.
Drinking and twittering are addicting (Score:2)
Drunk twittering is a life ruiner.
It just goes to show, in the 21st century (Score:2)
All lies (Score:2)
crack? (Score:2)
Checking a Twitter, Facebook or email account for updates may be more tempting than alcohol and cigarettes,
But not more tempting than crack.
I for one... (Score:1)
...welcome our new social media overlords
WOW! (Score:2)
I'm SO going to have to post this to my FB page!
My cold dead hands... (Score:2)
Will be linked to Slashdot.
sorry all those stuff (Score:2)
Are required for work. Give me $x billion and I am more than happy to stop using email.
Need a proof? (Score:1)
Real reliable research? (Score:1)
Did they normalize in their studies for the fact that many people who might use alcohol or tobacco have had other forces acting on their behavior besides the addiction to the substance, such as the fear of cancer or cirrhosis , the obvious cost of the addiction in cash, social acceptability of indulgence, versus the non-cancer causing (generally, now that CRT's are mostly gone, along with the barrage of X-Rays...) non liver-damaging, socially encouraged, and mostly free option of social media... I kind of d
I hope this is wrong (Score:2)
If something so easily available is more addictive than cigarettes that's a really serious problem. Do Facebookers get the shakes if they go a long time without status updates? Would they step outside into freezing cold weather for a Facebook break if they couldn't get a signal indoors?
lacking all common sense (Score:1)
As someone who has smoked for almost 20 years and had Facebook since it was only available on a few college campus but now only uses it as a rolodex and ocasional IM service, I assure you, this is just plain STUPID.
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that's just because your primary addiction, smoking, is interfering with your facebook habit.
Because it's harmless. (Score:3)
This is along the same lines as the claims that tobacco is more addictive than heroin. It's not a fair comparison. The desire for a serious drug is offset by the immediate and serious side effects, so people have a stronger incentive to resist. Indulging in a lesser drug has fewer immediate down sides. Indulging in social media has little to no adverse effects. A much better way to compare addictiveness would be to compare the effects of withdrawal.
Legalize drugs (Score:1)
Then ban Facebook.
Sounds like a fair trade to me.
Also please get rid of these excessive taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. If I'm going to kill myself, at least leave me some money for medical care.
look at me, i made a post! (Score:1)
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Underwear beat a city? WTF?
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chup tu vui ve