[testing22321]

> I feel that most kids with a supportive backgrounds will tame this beast for themselves eventually, so I hate to make hard "no phones" rules. I would rather they come to terms with this addiction for themselves

That approach doesn’t work so well for people with drug and alcohol addictions/dependancies.

What makes you think this is different?

[lmm]

> That approach doesn’t work so well for people with drug and alcohol addictions/dependancies.

Children raised in cultures where alcohol is soft- rather than hard-banned for young people, and gradually introduced to it with parents around (think European teenagers having a glass of wine with lunch), tend to have healthier relationships with alcohol in later life than those raised in hard-ban-until-18/21 cultures. I think exactly the same will prove true of phones.

[inglor_cz]

There may be a massive confounding factor in the type of alcohol consumed.

The more permissive cultures tend to be beer- or wine-centric. I have never been deeply interested in addictology, but the few (older) works on alcoholism I have read mentioned that beer and wine drinkers tend to develop a different sort of relationship with alcohol than hard drink consuments, in the sense that they have a hard time abstaining entirely, but fewer of them develop into the full-blown "gin zombie" type.

[mghackerlady]

I disagree. You see less depictions of beer or wine addicts despite them (at least from my experience) making up the majority of high-functioning alcoholics. I don't know for sure why they're depicted less, but my running theory is a combination of not being tragic enough for drama focused on alcoholism and being played for jokes with things like the "wine mom" stereotype. They also tend to be a lot better at hiding their alcoholism due to their type of drinking being more accepted. They have a different relationship with alcohol, but not necessarily a better one (arguably a more dangerous one due to the relative societal acceptance of their type of alcoholism).

[inglor_cz]

"high-functioning alcoholics"

That's the crux of the situation, though; on hard liquor, the slippery road to becoming a non-functional alcoholic is much steeper.

There also might be a gender difference. In my experience, men who drink wine, mostly drink with friends and self-limit. The sort of men who are prone to alcoholism won't be satisfied by mere wine and will proceed to hard drinks quick. On the other hand, women often drink wine alone and might develop a daily habit that degrades into full-blown alcoholism even without resorting to hard drinks.

FYI, I barely drink at all and I dislike sloshed people (incl. myself when I rarely get intoxicated; it is an unpleasant state to be in). But even hell has layers.

[mghackerlady]

I might also be biased. My dad was a "high-functioning alcoholic" who primarily drank beer. I also suppose that my definition of high-functioning might be a bit different as I think it's just as dangerous as non-functional alcoholism because it's easy to hide. My dad hid his problem well, it was only when he almost killed himself by driving off a cliff into a lake while he was shitfaced drunk that he decided to sober up. If he wasn't as good as hiding it he might've been pressured into stopping before he did as much damage to himself and those around him

[AngryData]

In my midwest area it seems like you can tell who are the alcoholics right away because they buy and drink cheap beers 90% of the time. Maybe to make themselves feel less like an alcoholic because they aren't drinking hard liquor, and it seems someone is more likely to say something if they see someone down a half+ bottle of vodka themselves, but nobody ever says anything seeing someone down 10+ beers.

[lmm]

I suspect that's not so much a confounder as one of the mechanisms.

[broken-kebab]

These things are not comparable. Alcohol is so old a thing we not only built plenty of stable cultural norms around it but we even developed genetic adaptations.

And speaking of culture, as an Eastern European I would argue our rules regarding alcohol are not soft. Yes, we drink, even expected to drink on some ritualized occasions. But contrary to Hollywood depictions, it's not cool to be a non-functional alco in our lands. When society decides you can't manage yourself, it builds harsh zone of exclusion around you. Imagine you have an uncle Jim who is constantly doomscrolling and for that he has no chances with a good reliable woman, his job opportunities are limited to something non-prestigious, people talk about him like he's a dimwit, even kids look down at him. He's recognized as a failure of a man and parents don't miss a chance to remind about the bad example to their kids. That would be "not-hard" rules EE style.

[Muromec]

That approach works more often than it doesn’t — outside of certain spiraling situations most people don’t became alcoholics and drug addicts.

Some however do, which is why drugs and alcohol are controlled to some degree.

[somenameforme]

They weren't always. In fact it took many centuries for this to happen. The history of cocaine in the US is quite interesting. It was being used everywhere and by everybody. Factory owners were giving it to their laborers to increase productivity, it was used in endless tonics, medicines, and drinks (most famously now Coca-Cola = cocaine + kola nut), and so on. You had everybody from Thomas Edison to popes to Ulysses S Grant and endles others testify to the benefits of Vin Mariani [1] which was a wine loaded with cocaine, that served as the inspiration for Coca-Cola.

So probably part of the reason it was so difficult to realize there is a problem is because everybody was coked out of their minds, so it all seemed normal. And I think the exact same is true of phones today. Watch a session of Congress or anything and half the guys there are playing on their phones; more than a few have been caught watching porn during session, to say nothing of the endless amount that haven't been caught! I can't help but find it hilarious, but objectively it's extremely inappropriate behavior, probably driven by addiction and impaired impulse controls which phones (and other digital tech) are certainly contributing heavily to.

I find it difficult to imagine a world in the future in which phones and similar tech aren't treated somewhat similarly to controlled substances. You can already see the makings of that happening today with ever more regions moving to age restrict social media.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani

[Aurornis]

> The history of cocaine in the US is quite interesting. It was being used everywhere and by everybody.

Be careful with that comparison. The cocaine infused drinks of the past are not comparable to modern cocaine use for several reasons.

The route of administration and dose matter a lot. Oral bioavailability is low and peak concentrations are much lower when drinking it in a liquid as opposed to someone insufflating (snorting) 50mg or more of powder.

You could give a modern cocaine user a glass of Vin Mariani and they probably would not believe you that it had any cocaine in it. The amount, absorption, and onset are so extremely different.

> So probably part of the reason it was so difficult to realize there is a problem is because everybody was coked out of their minds

That’s an exaggeration. To be “coked out” in the modern sense they’d have to be consuming an insane amount of alcohol as well. We’re talking bottle after bottle of the wine.

Be careful with these old anecdotes. Yes, it was weird and there were stimulant effects, but it’s not comparable to modern ideas of the drug abuse. It’s like comparing someone taking the lowest dose of Adderall by mouth to someone who crushes up a dozen pills and snorts them. Entirely different outcomes.

[somenameforme]

Vin Mariani was 7+mg/oz with a relatively low alcohol content which would have been further mitigated by the stimulant effect of the cocaine in any case. And then of course other concotions (including Coca-Cola) had no alcohol at all - Vin Mariani is just a fun example because of the endless famous names attached to it.

Obviously you're right that the absorption is going to be different and a modern coke head with high tolerance likely wouldn't even notice it had anything in it. But give it to a normal person, and they're indeed going to be coked out - in very much the same way that small doses of adderall to non-users can have a very significant effect. The obvious example there being college kids buying pills around around finals.

[master-lincoln]

> Some however do, which is why drugs and alcohol are controlled to some degree.

Following your argument shouldn't anything that can induce addiction be controlled? Seems that is not the case e.g. looking at sugar.

[Muromec]

>Following your argument shouldn't anything that can induce addiction be controlled?

Depending on a risk profile -- totally. There are talks of taxing sugar drinks and not selling "energy drinks", which are coffeine + sugar, to kids for this very reason.

I also mean controlled in the broad definition, not as in the "controlled substance". The culture of consumption prescribed by society is a way of regulation too, more effective than laws even.

[wisty]

I don't have time to search for a credible source, but it is claimed addicts often seek treatment after hitting "rock bottom".

There's obvious reasons why it's not encouraged to wait that long though.

[kergonath]

> it is claimed addicts often seek treatment after hitting "rock bottom".

From my experience it is often too late at that point. And actually hitting rock bottom is difficult and destructive, and leaves scars. As they say, preventing is better than curing.

[melagonster]

Maybe we can make school harder so they will go there earlier.

[achikin]

Because it is proven that phone usage is not an addiction like drugs or alcohol. People put phones away easily if they have a reason to do so.

[mghackerlady]

They aren't physically addictive like alcohol or opiates but it's very clear that many people have a psychological dependency on them. Whether or not a psychological dependency counts as an addiction is up to debate (personally, I believe they are due to my experiences with self harm, which many people including myself were or are psychologically dependant on) but the differences are mostly semantic if they end up functionally the same

[rossjudson]

I have no idea what you are talking about. It walks and quacks exactly like drugs and alcohol.

Thousands of deaths every year are caused by drivers on cell phones. You'd think they'd have a reason to put them away.

[achikin]

There are a lot of reasons for distraction while driving, but we don’t call all of them addiction on that premise. If a driver was not looking at his phone - maybe he’d be looking at something else. The phone is not the reason - it’s just a very suitable object.

[skeeter2020]

this is thoroughly debunked with hard data from distracted driving laws that focus on phone use while driving. We have the luxury of both before and after data and across different jurisidictions.

[achikin]

I agree, but something being distraction does not automatically mean it’s addictive. Gear shifting is a distraction, but we don’t consider it addictive.

[emil-lp]

Citation needed

[achikin]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6174603/

The main idea here is that overuse not equals addiction.

[justinclift]

The first part of the Results section says:

    [...] the majority of research in the field declares that smartphones are addictive

Though that section continues on to disagree with that majority, "the majority" declaring smartphones are addictive is certainly supportive of them being so.

[nkrisc]

I mean, it does work for most people. Most people can drink responsibly. The alcoholics are the ones who can’t do it on their own.