The whole purpose of this comparison is to invoke exactly this reaction.
directly puts chemicals INTO YOUR BRAIN.
Social media use causes the chemical dopamine to be produced in the brain.
Social Media is arguably worse. Both are addictive, but the damage from smoking heals over time. Social media permanently alters brain development and leaves people with debilitating psychological scars.
The immediate consequences of social media use are also worse. Bullying, predation, advertisements for smoking/vaping.
We need to treat social media use as seriously as smoking. That’s the point.
Dopamine is a natural chemical in the brain and you really don’t understand how it works, you are just repeating “Dopamine make brain feel good when it shouldn’t! Social Media make BAD Dopamine!”.
…Cigarettes also “create” Dopamine in the brain too…?
but the damage from smoking heals over time.
The damage of smoking doesnt heal over time you idiot, it kills you.
No, kids smoking a physical addictive drug by inhaling burning smoke is far far far worse than using social media and you are out of your damn mind to suggest otherwise.
The damage of smoking doesnt heal over time you idiot, it kills you.
Clearly I meant if you stop smoking the damage heals. As compared to psychological damage from exposure to whats on the internet.
Didn’t take much for you to crash out and resort to adhominims eh? Must be from the smoking right? Couldn’t possible be social media wiring you to be an irrational person.
Crashing out? I am pointing out that you are a willfull idiot if you believe this and don’t see how you are being manipulated by authoritarian forces that don’t care at all about kids and never did.
Yes I am saying you are being an idiot, I have explained why and provided a directly relevant source to the EFF to demonstrate why.
You don’t “heal” from smoking cigarettes it just either kills you or you stop smoking before it does.
Drawing a close comparison to a software app on a device that a kid may view and be emotionally affected by is insane, one is an external stimulus, the other is a drug that is inhaled in a way that immediately physically hurts the body, potentially locks in a lethal disease into that person’s future and radically changes brain chemistry over time to be supremely dependent upon nicotine.
About 1000 persons seeking treatment for alcohol or drug dependence were asked, relative to cigarettes, about the difficulty of quitting the use of the substance for which they were seeking treatment, the strength of their strongest urges to use, and the pleasure they derived from use. Fifty-seven percent said that cigarettes would be harder to quit using than their problem substance. These ratings were related to the level of cigarette dependence and the perceived difficulty of quitting the use of the problem substance. The alcohol-dependent persons were about four times more likely than the drug-dependent persons to say that their strongest urges for cigarettes were at least as great as their strongest urges for their problem substance. Cigarettes were generally rated as less pleasurable than alcohol or other drugs. Thus, experiential experts on dependence judge cigarette dependence as at least as “addictive” as other drug use, but not as pleasurable, indicating important similarities and differences between cigarette dependence and other forms of dependence on psychoactive substances.
Cigarettes have been established by decades of research to have ended the lives of a stupendous amount of people. Tobacco kills more than 7 million people per year.
Of course social media can be toxic, especially corporate social media with no actual investment into human moderation or mitigating rightwing hate speech against vulnerable minorities… but those are choices about how we chose to build social media and what values we built social media according to (endless growth potential being basically the only actual one).
Social media does not have to be that and it is absurd to spend time here, on the fediverse, while believing that social media should be banned for youths in such a draconian way.
Absurd claim.
Smoking is physically inhaling a burning substance that directly puts chemicals INTO YOUR BRAIN.
Smoking IS NOT equivalent to a kid to social media that is a ridiculous claim.
This is spreading misinformation and you need to stop.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/05/science-not-settled-how-weak-evidence-fueling-national-push-ban-social-media-youth
The whole purpose of this comparison is to invoke exactly this reaction.
Social media use causes the chemical dopamine to be produced in the brain.
Social Media is arguably worse. Both are addictive, but the damage from smoking heals over time. Social media permanently alters brain development and leaves people with debilitating psychological scars.
The immediate consequences of social media use are also worse. Bullying, predation, advertisements for smoking/vaping.
We need to treat social media use as seriously as smoking. That’s the point.
Dopamine is a natural chemical in the brain and you really don’t understand how it works, you are just repeating “Dopamine make brain feel good when it shouldn’t! Social Media make BAD Dopamine!”.
…Cigarettes also “create” Dopamine in the brain too…?
The damage of smoking doesnt heal over time you idiot, it kills you.
No, kids smoking a physical addictive drug by inhaling burning smoke is far far far worse than using social media and you are out of your damn mind to suggest otherwise.
So are formaldehyde and THC.
Clearly I meant if you stop smoking the damage heals. As compared to psychological damage from exposure to whats on the internet.
Didn’t take much for you to crash out and resort to adhominims eh? Must be from the smoking right? Couldn’t possible be social media wiring you to be an irrational person.
Crashing out? I am pointing out that you are a willfull idiot if you believe this and don’t see how you are being manipulated by authoritarian forces that don’t care at all about kids and never did.
You haven’t addressed the substance of my argument and are instead saying things like,
That’s crashing out.
edit: Do you think I’m some shill for the tobacco lobby lmao?
Like if we’re gonna devolve to ad hominims than aren’t you the one getting paid by zuckerfucker in this scenario?
Yes I am saying you are being an idiot, I have explained why and provided a directly relevant source to the EFF to demonstrate why.
You don’t “heal” from smoking cigarettes it just either kills you or you stop smoking before it does.
Drawing a close comparison to a software app on a device that a kid may view and be emotionally affected by is insane, one is an external stimulus, the other is a drug that is inhaled in a way that immediately physically hurts the body, potentially locks in a lethal disease into that person’s future and radically changes brain chemistry over time to be supremely dependent upon nicotine.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2913388/
Cigarettes have been established by decades of research to have ended the lives of a stupendous amount of people. Tobacco kills more than 7 million people per year.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
Of course social media can be toxic, especially corporate social media with no actual investment into human moderation or mitigating rightwing hate speech against vulnerable minorities… but those are choices about how we chose to build social media and what values we built social media according to (endless growth potential being basically the only actual one).
Social media does not have to be that and it is absurd to spend time here, on the fediverse, while believing that social media should be banned for youths in such a draconian way.
You are so close to understanding what I’m saying.
Well since ad hominims are on the table. You suck at reading comprehension.