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Comment by 1718627440 | Hacker News Reader

> rather than a problem with people not being able to or not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways.

That's literally what an addiction is.

An addiction would be you struggle to stop doing it. That would suggest they have no issue stopping, given a more interesting option.

“I can stop any time I want!”

You don't stop doing drugs because there's some movie you want to see. People do get off their phones for that.

Have you seen how many people watch movies these days? Even in the cinema they are scrolling.

Not touching alcohol for 12 hours a day does not mean you are not an alcoholic.

If you stare at a wall all day because you have nothing to do, are you addicted to staring at the wall, or do you just have nothing to do?

If someone stops drinking for a long enough period, with no urge to return to drinking, then yes, they aren't an alcoholic. You just made up a silly 12 hour window so you could beat a straw man to death.

If an alcoholic has been clean for decades, he is still an alcoholic, because the second he takes alcohol again, his brain switches back to addiction mode. That's the thing with addictions, they even destroy the good feeling you initially had about with drug.

When you are staring at a wall all day, you can probably think of a lot of other things you could do and did. When you stare at a wall all day, and think of nothing and enjoy it, then I would say you have mental problems. The problem isn't that you do something for a long time, the problem is that you can't think of something else or can't control you to do something else, even if you want.

> people not being able to spend their free time in other ways

> people not knowing how to spend their free time in other ways

Are two indications how it is difficult to stop something.

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