I read that cigarette people, who went out of their way to make their product addictive, then bought into food manufacturers and used the same playbook. They made the food as addictive as possible.
I started blogging on Xanga, in 2001. They came up with “eProps” (pictured) which motivated the content creators. I can tell you for sure, this was effective. Genius, really. Prop you up!
eProps morphed into “likes” with myspace, facebook, or twitter. I don’t recall the details, as far as who was first, but online content has become consistently more powerfully addictive.
This may pale in comparison to addictive power of video games, including the stock market and crypto…gambling in general. I have no idea how to rank these things, but we’ve definitely lost ground on the health front.
Looking at pictures from the 70’s people are definitely thinner and such, but we also smoked lie fiends… many of us did, anyway.
I was just talking about aging and seeing patterns that repeat – I feel this short note makes a strong point.
Most of us have heard the phrase, “everything in moderation”. It sounds good and it also sounds as if it should be easy to do, but almost no one can manage to maintain this standard. We just go from one addiction to the next to the next.
I’m thinking of a client who was addicted to this gal for a long time. When he broke that spell, he got on supplements and started doing thousands of sit-ups and pullups. Then on to something else, right?
I’m not dissing this guy. We all do this. I just want to include other examples.
We’ve sort of gotten rid of the word, “addiction”. It’s so boring, when you call someone “fire” or some such things. Man with all those sit-ups is hot and the obsession with the girl = “passion”?
What about addicted to doom scrolling, only fans… research? Grindr? How about meddling? Or hate! Addicted to hate, lol.
Are you addressing an addiction at this time? Or possibly enjoying one? Most of us are poly-addicted, I’d say.
Ha! I’ve just learned my boyfriend has been casually abusing pills the past couple months. We’ve been together for years and he had a problem in the past but not since before we got together. Neptune transit rolls around and there you have it. Guess I’ll be weaning off my addiction to him. Can’t do it. I’ve got some Chiron stuff, my dad was an addict so I swore off my addiction to everything that comes with living with an addict long ago. At the age of 9 to be exact. Heavy and hard. Addiction at its bones.
All addictions stem from a lack of connection. Either to self but most often to others – the latter leading to the former, for as the saying goes “no man is an island”. Something gets broken, in disrepair, and there you go pining for a fix, whatever form it may take for you. It’s a long way back for some, when (if) they become aware, but I’m also not entirely sure success is guaranteed if society keeps forcing you down, whether by shaming or ostracizing. People with whom those connections got broken might not be interested at all in seeing through your eyes, or capable of. It’s a world where the social and community ties have gradually been dissolved. As human beings we have been disowned in so many ways for the past century or 2 at least. Competition instead of cooperation. Survival of the fittest but fittest for what? For becoming each an island? You see where I’m going with this. Ain’t pretty. But, on the flipside, for those aware and willing to see where their own weakness lies that leads to addiction, it’s easier to get, as Elsa says, a handle on it. Cigarettes are the only addiction (in that I gain nothing extra from it) I have, and consciously so. It’s a working in process. At some point I’ll say goodbye, I’m not to judge myself too harshly, it’s enough that the world does. Every other smaller obsession I have, be it astrology or any other, I do get extra things from it. I have a knowledge of many different subjects/areas and I deeply enjoy it, as all moons in gem would agree. 🙂