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Should Addictive Tech Come With a Health Warning?
holy_calamity writes "Academics researching how technology addiction affects businesses and employees say 'habit-forming' gadgets like Blackberries should be dispensed along with warnings about the effect they can have on your life. 'We don't want to be in a situation in a few years similar to that with fast food or tobacco today. We need to pay attention to how people react to potentially habit-forming technologies.'"
Oh please, big government, save us from ourselves by outlawing more things! We don't need to be personally accountable for our own actions!
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
As long as doing something (gaming, gambling, alcohol, drugs) potentiates the production of dopamine, then it has the potential to cause addiction.
Doing things you enjoy are fun, usually when you're having fun dopamine levels rise significantly in your brain.
Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities.
No kidding! What would such a warning label look like?
Surgeon General's Warning: The likelihood of a psychological addiction to this device is approximately equal to your own tendency to become psychologically addicted to stuff.
I work in a place where they hand out blackberries like they're candy on Halloween. IMHO, people don't get 'addicted' to their blackberries, they become addicted to making it look like they're doing something important. Either way it's pathetic, and no warning label will fix it.
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
so you want a warning on -everything- that says "If you lack will power please don't buy this product"? please give me a break. less blame shifting is not what the world needs.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
As with everything else in life, you should exercise moderation. Anything enjoyable can be addictive, whether it be a drug, sex, video games, or an electronic gadget. It's all in the responsibility of the user/consumer. I'm addicted to Call of Duty and accept full responsibility of a ruined social life.
Several posters have already argued that the seatbelt law makes sense because the hospital bill for people injured in this manner is paid for by The State. The problem is that this argument only makes sense if society already works under the presumption that The State is required to pay for people's bills when they can't afford them.
It's not a presumption so much as (to a large degree) the current reality. I'm not saying the solution should be that we make laws against everything dangerous, and I'm not saying the solution should be that if you get hurt in any case and don't have money on hand you're shit out of luck, but... if I get perfect freedom to endanger myself, other people also shouldn't have to pay for it.
Although I'm sure some people won't love the example, I think current smoking laws (in parts of America, anyway) are a reasonable compromise between allowing personal freedoms when they don't harm others, protecting others from said harm, and offering incentives for healthy behavior.
(I still don't see a warning label going on a Blackberry.)
Why should a government treat its citizens like adults when marketers, entertainers, and the citizens themselves don't? The idea that people are inherently rational and can't be swayed by clever psychology is one of the biggest delusions in the modern world.
However evil and corrupt corporations are, they don't have the right to bust down my door at 2am and kill me or (if I'm lucky) drag me away to spend the rest of my life in a small cement room.
Libertarian types get really hung up on institutionalized violence, but I don't think they've made the case that physical oppression is really any worse than emotional oppression. There are many things that can fuck you up *much* worse than being locked in a small cement room. If you try, I bet you can think of many things that you would happily go to jail to prevent -- how about your little sister becoming anorexic? Or a dear friend becoming a junkie and spiraling down into suicide? Now here's the real question -- are those personal choices, or the result of the actions of other people? The reality is that it's mixed. Nobody decides in advance that they're going to have an eating disorder or get addicted to drugs or elevate their blood pressure by checking email all day and night. It takes one step at a time, and often those steps are encouraged by organized groups that take advantage of quirks of human behavior to make money. No individual has the resources to keep up with that all of the time. I agree that government regulation is far from ideal, but it does act as a counterweight to corporate abuse, and I think the claim that we don't need that is based on an unrealistic view of how people work.
So to answer your earlier statement, does the government know better than me? About some things, no, but about a whole hell of a lot of things, yes. I'm one person; it's made up of millions.
Visit the
I'm not talking about forcing people to *use* seat-belts. Although I am ambivalent on that particular topic.
My point about seat-belts was laws requiring car manufacturers to include them. Up until that point, car makers would rather save those few dollars per car (which amounts to an extremely small percentage of the overall car) and leave the seat-belts out. This is one example of the failure of the free market, where government intervention is extremely beneficial.
I absolutely and fully agree that adults should have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior. This is not what we're talking about here (and fuck me, does no one know that seat-belts were not required on cars for half-a-century?). I'm talking about placing obstacles in the way so that if someone is going to harm themselves, it's because *they truly want to engage in that behavior* and not simply because they've been tricked or directed into such behavior by those who stand to make money of their self-destruction.
If you place no restriction on marketing and selling self-destruction to people, corporations are going to devise ways to most efficiently get people hooked on their product. This completely bypasses rational self-determination and it seems quite reasonable for the government to help protect people from being exploited, while still allowing them the freedom to willingly and knowingly walk into self-destruction, if they so desire.
It's worse than that. The coffee was kept that hot by corporate order. They knew it would burn people, but the argument that it's for commuters was always put forward. That, of course, makes no sense, since the same coffee is brewed for people sitting down in the store.
From the parent's link:
Evidence presented to the jury
During the case, Liebeck's attorneys discovered that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190 F (82-88 C). At that temperature, the coffee would cause a third-degree burn in two to seven seconds.
WTF? You think that's reasonable?
Sigh. I get tire of people trotting out the same old excuses for a stupid woman.
Get this straight, "You DON'T hold hot coffee between your legs to add sugar while driving a car." Intelligent people refer to such actions as STUPID, usually with an adjunct such as, "You'll spill hot coffee in your lap, knucklehead." Intelligent adults don't look to the court system to pamper them when they do something stupid, like playing with hot coffee in your lap while operating a motor vehicle, especially when you have the reduce physical reactions of an octogenarian.
McDonald's served thier coffee hot, because that is what customers wanted. That's called RUNNING A CUSTOMER FOCUSSED BUSINESS. My father would go out of his way to buy his coffee from McDonald's, just because they served it hot.
Sears knowingly sells tablesaws that have been known to cut off hands and fingers. Yet they continue to sell them just because people keep buying them. If you told Sears that people have been injured with the saws, I'm sure their response would be along the lines of, "Yeah. So?" So, should someone sue Sears for selling a known potentially harmful item?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba