Instagram boss says 16 hours of daily use is 'problematic' not addiction

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn71mgmzljlo

by pseudolus • 5 months ago

71 44 5 months ago

bbc.com

walletdrainer3• 5 months ago

That seems like it’s probably correct, and utterly unsurprising.

Why does this deserve a headline?

nielsbot• 5 months ago

That he said it or that the label “problematic” is correct?

walletdrainer3• 5 months ago

Both of the above, and also that the label “addiction” is typically not correct.

thisislife22• 5 months ago

Do you really believe 16 hours of use daily is not indicative of an addiction? It deserves a headline as it is is a controversial statement that aims to minimise criticism against social media platforms and thus needs to be challenged / debated in society. If social media addiction is not treated as a social problem, the people will not pressure the government to regulate it. That is why social media platforms are claiming that it is only (a personal) problem (of some individual) if some use it for 16 hours while others suggest that it has become a societal problem because its users are now addicts. Social problems needs political solutions to address, and in this case one of the suggested ways is government intervention (through regulations).

walletdrainer3• 5 months ago

Do you really believe 16 hours of use daily is not indicative of an addiction?

It can certainly indicate that, but typically does not.

Most instances of problematic overindulgence have absolutely nothing to do with addiction.

bdamm• 5 months ago

It is absolutely revealing that the Instagram boss can’t openly admit that 16 hours of daily use is a problem.

Name one thing that is okay to do for 16 hours a day. One.

King-Aaron• 5 months ago

breathing

atomicapple• 5 months ago

the Instagram boss can’t openly admit that 16 hours of daily use is a problem.
Instagram boss says 16 hours of daily use is "problematic"

tgv2• 5 months ago

Not the best argument, as the answer is breathing.

andsoitis• 5 months ago

It is absolutely revealing that the Instagram boss can’t openly admit that 16 hours of daily use is a problem.

He literally said it is problematic!

razingeden• 5 months ago

Take meth for example, if someone can use it for only one hour a day is it a problem?

Who and what in your life is 16 hours of Instagram taking you away from?

Instagram is garbage by the way for any Meta people in this thread. I’m tired of not seeing anyone I follow because you’re putting ads and viral videos I don’t give a fuck about in front of me instead. No wonder it wastes 16 hours, scrolling through shit trying to find something from someone or something you follow.

Your app is literally useless for communicating or keeping up with anyone I follow.

Facebook died when it lost interest in being Facebook and wanted to become TikTok.

Instagram died when it lost interest in being Instagram and wanted to become TikTok.

Your products and company should be banned, and everyone on your board belongs in jail.

godelski2• 5 months ago

Considering teenagers should get more than 8hrs of sleep, 16 hours means they're losing sleep because they spent more than their waking hours on a single thing...

giancarlostoro• 5 months ago

Ah yes, my high school years, go to sleep at 1 ~ 2 AM wake up at 5 AM in order to get ready for high school. There was no instagram, insomnia was still terrible. Teens need a lot of sleep time, but I feel like I was way more resilient on less sleep. Compared to now where I can barely function without at least 7 hours of sleep.

leosanchez• 5 months ago

When does it become an addiction? 26 hours?

JumpCrisscross4• 5 months ago

Adam Mosseri, who has led Instagram for eight years

This is the light of moral clarity in Mountain View that champions Instagram for Kids [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062576576/instagrams-ceo-ada...

scarab92• 5 months ago

It’s worth keeping in mind that 16 hours was their single highest day of use ever, not their typical daily use.

I’m sure I’ve spent 16 hours on Netflix or League of Legends in a 24 hour period before, yet my median daily usage is 0 hours, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to describe my usage as an addition either.

I’m not saying people don’t get addicted to social media, they do, but in this particular case I think his description of problematic is adequate, and this headline is unnecessarily confrontational.

JumpCrisscross4• 5 months ago

Now do “Mosseri said he did not think it was possible to say how much Instagram use was too much.”

The guy doesn’t have a red line when it comes to children. That’s self serving and dangerous. (It’s also against a mounting pile of evidence, much of which Facebook has tried to lie about.)

tanseydavid• 5 months ago

> I’m sure I’ve spent 16 hours on Netflix or League of Legends in a 24 hour period before

I'm curious if you had planned or intended to spend 16 hours doing it on these days? Or did you simply find it very difficult to stop?

throwawayk7h• 5 months ago

habituation and addiction are technically different. But both can be very damaging.

carabiner• 5 months ago

Are we the bad guys then?

daniel_iversen• 5 months ago

[assuming you work for Meta or a social media company] in theory (and not that debatable IMHO) if the net contribution to society on balance is negative?

sph• 5 months ago

If you work on a social media platform, probably, yeah.

stinkbeetle• 5 months ago

He would say that.

Surac• 5 months ago

If i only look ar it every 8 hours for 10 secs then 16 hours may be ok

intellectronica• 5 months ago

Technically correct. We can't call every compulsive behaviour "addiction". Using a social app for 16 hours a day is a very serious problem and requires treatment. But it's not addiction in the same sense that other commonly-recognised addictions to substance and even behaviours are.

whilenot-dev• 5 months ago

I'd call every enjoyment that isn't practiced as a ritual an addiction, and healthy rituals should not take up more than a fraction of the available time.

With 16 hours of daily use (and 8 hours of sleep per day) I wouldn't contrast the batched consumption here on an hours/day-basis, but on a days/year-basis, like going on a trip, a festival etc. Since that basically results in all the days available each year here, it isn't really a practiced ritual anymore, but a complete lifestyle.

baxtr• 5 months ago

It’s good to have a definition in place before a discussion.

People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.

This is from the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

You can do your own test if this matches watching short videos extensively.

https://www.asam.org/quality-care/definition-of-addiction

rester324• 5 months ago

IMO we are way past beyond the point where these definitions are necessary. The consensus is that social media sites are objectively mentally harmful

sidcool• 5 months ago

"Thank you for smoking"

b00ty4breakfast• 5 months ago

I could maybe be more amenable to considering his opinion if his product wasn't designed to elicit this kind of behavior in users. Whether 16 hours specifically is the norm or just an extreme outlier, it is still the desired outcome of every decision that goes into engineering and building Instagram.

eating 20 twinkies a day isn't necessarily the norm but twinkies have been formulated to make you want to eat them.

Frieren• 5 months ago

"I'm sure I've said that I've been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night, but I don't think it's the same thing as clinical addiction."

Tobacco defense. He is defending himself in a trial, is a very biased opinion.

Familial links to lung cancer manifestation first appeared in the literature in the 1960s when siblings were found to have an increase in lung cancer mortality. ... The first published piece of literature attributing cigarette smoking to the growing incidence of lung cancer was in 1912 ... Tobacco companies enlisted the medical and nursing professions to promote the safety of their products in their advertising materials

Stop listening to billionaires and CEOs that profit the most from the damage that their business do to society. They lie for money, as simple as that.

erelong• 5 months ago

Fair to say it's not an addiction but habit forming?

Just like food, gaming, exercise, certain drugs...?

For example with certain drug addictions there is a direct physical danger of overdose which doesn't exist in the same way with social media

josefritzishere• 5 months ago

16 hours of anything in a day is a problem. You can't even sleep for 16 hours without it being indicative of a problem.

Instagram boss says 16 hours of daily use is 'problematic' not addiction

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