[PragmaticPulp]

> What percentage of alcoholics would say alcohol makes them feel better.

What percentage of people who drink alcohol are alcoholics?

It's an interesting comparison because the vast majority of people have no trouble moderating their consumption of alcohol and I'd argue that the same goes for social media. Yet we're so focused on the subset of social media users who are addicts that many here are convinced it's not possible to use social media without being an addict. I suspect if similar rhetoric was leveled against alcohol we'd see a strong backlash from people who enjoy alcohol responsibly, or from people who simply prefer freedom to choose their own actions.

[Barrin92]

>What percentage of people who drink alcohol are alcoholics?

In the US about ~7% or 14 million people depending on how you define alcoholism. Globally about 3 million people die every year of consequences related to drinking, or put differently, 5% of global deaths are attributable to alcohol consumption.[1].

That is about as many people as covid seems to have killed last year. You're actually right in drawing a comparison between social media and drinking, but I think you're wrong about thinking that means we should take social media less seriously, rather we should take drinking much more seriously. Certainly very few people would argue we should take a pandemic less seriously that costs hundreds of billions per year and kills millions, and that is what alcoholism does as well.

As a society we are extremely negligent of threats that cause enormous social harm in the aggregate simply because they don't harm everyone they come into contact with.

[1]https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh...

[WastingMyTime89]

> In the US about ~7% or 14 million people depending on how you define alcoholism. Globally about 3 million people die every year of consequences related to drinking, or put differently, 5% of global deaths are attributable to alcohol consumption.[1].

That's the statistics for Alcohol Use Disorder (or AUD) not alcoholism. AUD is definitely not what people think when they speak of alcoholism. That would be alcohol addiction.

In typical American fashion, AUD has an extremely broad definition. For example if twice during the past year you went out with friends longer than you expected, had more beer than you were planning to, ended hangover the day after and thought "I should really stop drinking" you have mild AUD.

[dionidium]

> AUD is definitely not what people think when they speak of alcoholism.

That's true, but what people think of when they think of alcoholism is pretty silly and it's not how any addiction specialists think of addiction today. There's an enormous gulf between what experts think about addiction and what laypeople picture when they think of an "alcoholic."

> For example if twice during the past year you went out with friends longer than you expected, had more beer than you were planning to, ended hangover the day after and thought "I should really stop drinking" you have mild AUD.

And why not? If you took a drug that resulted in adverse consequences and your response to that is that it's no big deal and you'll probably do it again, then that suggests something that's at least mildly problematic.

[lelandfe]

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh...

WastingMyTime89 is likely referring to the DSM-5 definition of AUD here. It is rather broad, though a bit more narrow than they've outlined. Worth a look. I certainly have friends who would qualify.

You can also access the DSM-5 text directly through the Internet Archive, though it is sometimes unavailable depending on usage: https://archive.org/details/diagnosticstatis0005unse/page/49...

[WastingMyTime89]

That's the definition used to calculate the percentage cited by the person I was replying to. Don't get me wrong I don't doubt it's a useful diagnostic tool in the hand of professional. It's just that the threshold for mild symptoms make it somewhat useless for a statical point of view from my point of view.

As far as I know, self-reporting is considered a poor tool to study addiction anyway because addicts are the least likely to agree to answer questions about their consumption or tend to lie.

[dnissley]

> As a society we are extremely negligent of threats that cause enormous social harm in the aggregate simply because they don't harm everyone they come into contact with.

Probably. But see also the harm of overly stringent regulation of said threats, with the obvious example being prohibition of alcohol in the US.

So as a society we take reasonable measures to prevent the worst outcomes. In the case of alcohol we have ratcheted up the consequences of drunk driving, limited the drinking age to 21+, etc.

[vcmanlp]

According to those definitions at least 30% of the people in the UK would be alcoholics. I hear that in Japan one is expected to drink, and the life expectancy is higher.

[bredren]

The difference is (apart from original formula Four Loko) there is no mystery of what goes into alcoholic beverages.

Wheras the specifics of what Facebook chooses to show you is either opaque or incalculable for people who visit their website.

This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

When you buy Bud Light, there isn’t some constantly shifting emotionally persuasive unlicensed content available to offer just the right amount of drip to give a site visitor a drip just before their average session length is wrapping.

I personally think alcohol is often destructive like rot and sloppy tool to play with one’s consciousness.

However, it is at lease consistent and well understood. Facebook is neither, and can much more easily be linked with havoc in pursuit of ad spend.

[Cipater]

>apart from original formula Four Loko

Death in a can.

Drinking two of those bad boys in an hour was like getting into a time machine. You'd wake up in an unfamiliar place with a trail of depravity and destruction in your wake like Hansel and Gretel on a bender.

[throwawaylinux]

I don't really think knowing those things would have much if any affect on users or the platform's impact to society or the ability to regulate these platforms.

What are you going to do, tell them they can't show you more content similar to things you or your friends or people with similar interests spend a lot of time on?

> This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

Was this really a mistake? Or just something that caused a lot of outrage and discussion and views and clicks so therefore got amplified and spread by design?

[Nextgrid]

> This includes catastrophic mistakes in the algorithm like the massive groups pushing Q anon early in.

Is it “catastrophic mistakes” or is the algorithm working as intended to maximize engagement?

From Facebook’s point of view I’m not sure it’s a mistake - these Q people have “engaged” plenty and the conspiracy is still a wonderful generator of engagement, whether from the Q people’s side pushing endless conspiracies, from people trying to reason with then or from those merely laughing at them.

[mpalmer]

The ratio of alcoholics to alcohol consumers is probably significantly higher for teens than for adults.

[amanaplanacanal]

But this article is talking about teenagers. We don’t let teens drink in the US, because they aren’t mature enough yet.

[trey-jones]

Some would argue that the introduction of alcohol as a social norm earlier in life would reduce the amount of irresponsible use when those still-immature young Americans turn 21.

Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I am also an American and a parent of young kids, and I do not intend to allow them free access to social media anytime soon (oldest is 11).

[runawaybottle]

Problem drinkers become extra problematic when their drinking harms others. That goes beyond just hurting yourself.

What percentage of FB/Insta users are truly addicts and harm themselves? Maybe moderately low, who knows. But, how likely is it that their social peacocking impacts others even if they themselves are not being hurt by it? The body image thing for teen girls is happening when other girls post their pictures. That’s what makes this whole thing very difficult to measure.