Agreed. I don’t use social media of any kind. Not even on the desktop. I always run with Downtime on. All new apps are disallowed from running or notifying unless I whitelist them explicitly.
You really don’t need this “attention porn” in your life. Just turn it all off. Make friends IRL instead. So worth it.
That is all the more reason to make an effort to break the addiction. That is what people do with nicotine.
I do not know of any countries that have banned nicotine. Almost all countries banned sales to kids from a very long time ago, so that was not what changed.
One thing I remember from looking at the industry (I was an investment analyst back then) about 25 years ago, and from my own observations, is that there was a cultural change. Smoking became uncool, a mark of a lack of education. First in the west, and then later globally. Sales of more expensive brands declined, market share moved to cheap brands.
That motivated people to break their addiction and a lot of people gave up as a result. However, everyone with an addiction had to struggle to break it.
Maybe we need more support for people trying to break their social media addiction. Social media addiction anonymous? I guess it still feels like someone trying to give up smoking when everyone did it.
On the other hand, I would encourage you to try. I am very fond of quoting the serenity prayer, and this is something you can control (although its not easy).
You're right about the smoking. Boy did stigma kill that, at least in the US. I still remember bars where you could smoke when I was a kid.
This is an interesting comparison you bring up, because there isn't no stigma around social media, I'd say. It's definitely not well regarded to be on your phone in social settings, at least for my generation. But in private, I know many (incl myself) scroll way more than I'd like. Almost like a smoker sneaking off to get their fix.
A few days ago I came across some idea of having a public readout on a website or something of how much time you spend on your phone, as a way to reproduce this stigma. Unfortunately all the API's to access this data are closed, including iOS. With more access, there could be some really amazing tools to help people use their technology in a way that serves them better, but the people in power would prefer that don't happen...
You really don’t need this “attention porn” in your life. Just turn it all off. Make friends IRL instead. So worth it.