[pbhjpbhj]

So, how about when your schoolwork requires you to 'ingest the drugs', you visit YouTube to watch the video your teacher picked out (they did a bad job IMO, but hey) ... then you're supposed to leave [cold turkey!] and get on with your work, except the website is highly animate and designed carefully to entice you to stay. All of a sudden you're spending the afternoon watching dross on YT because kids lack self-control and companies know how to exploit that.

Of course there's some blame goes to the teacher, but hey.

I think your response is disingenuous.

Aside, I don't know what tech you're using but mines all been blinken-lights and conditioned-response dings (by default) for years.

There is certainly a conflict, OP might have been slowly melodramatic in their choice of words but just as casinos foster their whales, so too tech companies use the psychology of addiction against consumers.

[dijksterhuis]

In your YouTube example there are are few people that have responsibilities:

- teacher

- video maker

- YouTube Devs

- companies

- "kids"

- individual

- school

- etc

YouTube (the drug) is just a series of instructions that make a slab of glass light up in a certain pattern and a speaker to oscillate in a particular fashion (depending on hardware).

It's an inanimate f----- object. It doesn't have "responsibilities".

That's the point I'm getting at. Why don't we, collectively, stop blaming the drugs/tech and start finding solutions to the actual problem?

It's easy to point the blame finger, it's harder to solve a problem.

[pbhjpbhj]

A key difference is that YouTube/companies in part work to increase 'engagement' (which in turn encourages overuse, and encompasses the courting of addictive behaviors) even when it reduces utility.

The other parties want to maximise utility.

[dijksterhuis]

Do you not think drug dealers aim to "maximise engagement" too? It's not the drug's fault for the dealers actions. So how about we stop blaming an inanimate f----- object and work to find a solution to the problem.

In your schoolwork example I can come up with four potential solutions off the top of my head:

- Speak to the teacher about concerns and ask about other ways of doing what is required

- Speak to parents and ask them to help with the homework

- Buddy up with a friend and watch the required video with a friend to avoid falling down a rabbit hole

- Use software like youtube-dl to download the video locally, to avoid temptation of watching another video

Then we come back full circle to the parent comment. It's not the drug's fault. It's not the phone's fault. It's not some software instruction's fault.

Blaming and ascribing fault is only helpful in identifying the problem. After that, the question becomes what can I do about it that will helpful for me today? What is my solution for how this affects me?

i.e. learning to develop personal responsibility.