We ban chemicals that are designed to be addictive to humans. The exception are substances that are addictive but also have high medical utility. Those are carefully controlled (sometimes less carefully of course — see OxyContin).
It doesn’t seem impossible to make similar value judgments about social media apps, but clearly it’s even harder than with chemicals.
HN ranks fairly low on the "designed to be addictive" scale, and fairly high on the utility scale. With TikTok, it's obvious that it's off the charts on the former while the latter is a very complicated value judgment.
It doesn’t seem impossible to make similar value judgments about social media apps, but clearly it’s even harder than with chemicals.
HN ranks fairly low on the "designed to be addictive" scale, and fairly high on the utility scale. With TikTok, it's obvious that it's off the charts on the former while the latter is a very complicated value judgment.