Harmless habits

The idea

Harmless addictions and entertainment are things that by itself seem harmless, but too often they lead to serious life problems.

In fact, the are often advertised as good for health, social life, educating or even increasing IQ.

It can be really hard not to abuse it, when it is encouraged in the whole society and everything seems to be in grey area and it’s hard to notice when you are already drowning in multiple of these addictions.

I would also say that podcasts and music are bad when played too often, because you need time for your own thoughs every day. There are people seriously addicted to listening to music.

These are most notable sources of “harmless addictions”.

Most of these you will never directly die from or visit hospital but even the time that it steals from your free time is enough to see that they’re not really harmless. There is always a tradeoff.

“Time, by mo­ments, steals away, First the hour, and then the day; Small the dai­ly loss ap­pears, Yet it soon amounts to years.”

You will not die from weed, but it’s bad for motivation and steals time and money. You get the idea?

Problem with modern addictions

As smoking lost its enormous popularity in 20th century after proving it is harmful to health, it was replaced by other activities, that are new and don’t have studies on its long term effects, or can be argued that they are not harmful by itself, or when done reasonably.

But the majority of games and social media sites are carefully designed by engineers to promote addiction, they try every trick for you to not use it in moderation.

They even exploit your natural weakness, by using frustration, fear, phobias, sexual imagery, loneliness and political division to keep you engaged.

And by using weaknesses, they only increase them, and problems created by them.

Social media literally divides people politically by every possible category, it’s inciting hatred, and promotes antinatalism since that’s what keeps engagement.

Movies show violence and 3d effects in every scene to keep people watching or to engage them when switching between channels. Horror movies have stupid phobias to get people scared, and in some cases they create artificial fear, like with sharks. This is retarded.

All that to maximize profit. The market by its nature reveals the companies that are most efficient in making money, so in zero gravity - without people refusing to play exploiting and addictive games, these games, movies and sites are on top lists.

I hate when my relatives or acquaintances get angry over stupid games. We’re all different and some people handle it better than other, but i think that if you feel stress or get frustrated over a game, you should change the game or stop playing.

Stress is very harmful for your health, especially when sitting in front of a desk, it’s bad for cardiovascular system and posture, whether you sit correctly or not.

With Internet, sugar, and masturbation addiction, it’s very hard because you usually have to be exposed in some way to it and still control yourself, while you can just walk away from alcohol and smoking.

One big thing is that alcohol and smoking is restricted for young people and recognized as addiction, and something bad in teenagers. Meanwhile:

And i say all this as a young person. I’ve been on facebook since 7/8, initially mostly for chill games that your mother would play, but still.
I’m happy to not have eaten nestle contaminated sewage water in gerber as a shitling, but i ate and drank other crap that should be prohibited from selling, while growing.
I even got “addicted” from Monster White.

Of course, restriction doesn’t stop access, but it’s not the same as unlimited access and lack of recognition(school rant)

What kind of society we live in that it’s not an issue? I drank and smoked some weed at 14, but i didn’t walk around my parents or school unnoticed or encouraged. I always remember my school after i went to school in big city, and there was a small store inside for when you don’t have time to walk to a store outside, and above there was a sign with open hours and banana, orange and apple. But you could buy energy drinks under 18, and the only partially “fresh” thing was white bread sandwiches. There were hot-dogs, snack bars, chips, donuts, sweet drinks etc. I don’t think they need to provide everything, however the school, as always tried to bully people to not walk out during breaks.

Still better than previous school, where they threatened me with police and everything possible so i don’t walk 500m to a store because i didn’t take enough water during warm season and there isn’t even AC.

You can’t fucking move around outside of physical education. The boomers are right.