‘I know that I’m gay’: Former NRL star reveals inner battle
Kane Evans reveals he’s gay and speaks about his drug and alcohol addiction that led to homelessness. ⌘ Read more

The UK Is Betting on a Billion-Dollar AI Supercomputer to Kick Its Addiction to US Tech
The British government thinks a state-backed infrastructure initiative will help supercharge homegrown chip startups. ⌘ Read more

‘I know that I’m gay’: Former NRL star reveals inner battle
Kane Evans reveals he’s gay and speaks about his drug and alcohol addiction that led to homelessness. ⌘ Read more

‘I know that I’m gay’: Former NRL enforcer Kane Evans comes out in emotional interview
The ex-Roosters, Parramatta and Fiji star has detailed his battles with alcohol and substance addiction and mental health while wrestling with his sexuality. ⌘ Read more

Showing myself is my new addiction ⌘ Read more

showing myself is my new addiction ⌘ Read more

Microsoft wants users to be addicted to Scout, their AI personal assistant
Article URL: https://disassociated.com/microsoft-users-addicted-ai-personal-assistant/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48419023

Points: 4

# Comments: 0 ⌘ Read more

Leak Reveals Microsoft Wants Its AI to Be ‘Addictive’
Article URL: https://kotaku.com/microsoft-ai-scout-addictive-satya-nadella-404-media-copilot-2000702924

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48413924

Points: 14

# Comments: 0 ⌘ Read more

DistroWatch turns 25
The DistroWatch site is celebrating its\
25th anniversary. “All in all, it has been an incredible ride. Many
of you who read these pages regularly know that downloading and testing
distributions is a highly addictive pastime. I have been an avid
distro-hopper for the last 25 years and I don’t see myself abandoning this
activity for many more years to come.” Congratulations to Ladislav
Bodnar and all the others who have kept that resource going for so long. ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net You actually did? 😅 Good luck. 😅 I never dared to, I’d probably get addicted. 🤣

Are Trump, Elon and Kanye ALL Social Media Addicts? ⌘ Read more

im addicted to myself ⌘ Read more

EU To Crack Down On TikTok, Instagram’s ‘Addictive Design’
The EU plans to target “addictive design” features on TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, including endless scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and recommendation loops that can steer children toward harmful content. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said new regulation could arrive later this year, alongside an EU age-verification app m … ⌘ Read more

Hasan Piker, Self-Described ‘Ayatollah of Woke,’ Wants AI to Die
The far-left Twitch streamer says AI is rotting our brains. He’s also addicted to Twitter and listens to at least eight podcasts. ⌘ Read more

i’m a mirror addict ⌘ Read more

Social Media Platforms Need To Stop Never-Ending Scrolling, UK’s Starmer Says
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said social media platforms should remove addictive infinite-scroll features for young users as Britain considers new child-safety measures. “We’re consulting on whether there should be a ban for under 16s,” Starmer told BBC Radio. “But I think equally important, the addictive scrolling mecha … ⌘ Read more

showing myself is my new addiction ⌘ Read more

Two-Week Social Media ‘Detox’ Erases a Decade Age-Related Decline, Study Finds
Critics say social media is engineered to be as addictive as tobacco or gambling, writes the Washington Post — while adding that “the science has been moving in parallel with the court’s recognition.”

A growing body of research links heavy social media use not only to declines in mental health but to measurable cognitive … ⌘ Read more

Meta Removes Ads For Social Media Addiction Litigation
Meta has started removing ads from law firms seeking clients for social media addiction lawsuits, just weeks after a jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark case involving harm to a young user. “Lawyers across the country now are seeking new plaintiffs, in the hopes of bringing a class action lawsuit that could result in lucrative verdicts,” reports Axio … ⌘ Read more

Will Social Media Change After YouTube and Meta’s Court Defeat?
Yes, this week YouTube and Meta were found negligent in a landmark case about social media addiction.

But “it’s still far from certain what this defeat will change,” argues The Verge’s senior tech and policy editor, “and what the collateral damage could be.”

If these decisions survive appeal — which isn’t certain — the direct outcome would be multi … ⌘ Read more

Five ways to beat your phone addiction (that actually work)
A jury just ruled social media is designed to addict you. We road-tested five ways to fight back. ⌘ Read more

Austria Plans Social Media Ban For Under-14s
Austria plans to restrict under-14s from using social media platforms over concerns about addictive algorithms and harmful content. The government says draft legislation should be ready by the end of June, though details around enforcement and age verification have yet to be finalized. The BBC reports: Announcing the plans, Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler of the Social Democrats said th … ⌘ Read more

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case
A jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark social media addiction case, ruling that addictive design features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations harmed a young user and contributed to her mental health distress. The verdict awards $3 million in compensatory damages so far and could pave the way for … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net Sorry, I have two functional brain cells left in my brain, and I’m not sure if you’re asking What am I putting in it, as in a) when making some? Or as in b) when consuming/serving it?

a) 1L milk (0.5L cold + 0.5L warm @ ~45 °C), a bit of store bought yogourt for the bacteria, sugar and vanilla extract.
b) Most of the time, as is. But I’ve tried once: adding in a couple of diced strawberries that have been sitting in granulated sugar for a couple of minutes, until they’d released enough syrup, and I think I might’ve caught a new addiction on top of the original one.

What do you put in yours?

Indonesia To Ban Social Media For Children Under 16
Indonesia will ban children under 16 from having accounts on major social media platforms as part of a government push to protect minors from harmful content, addiction, and online threats. The rule will roll out starting March 28 and makes Indonesia the first country in Southeast Asia to impose such a restriction. The Guardian reports: Meutya Hafid said in a statement to … ⌘ Read more

New Something Something Unlocked: “Making Yogurt”. (Still not sure if it’s a new skill or an addiction)

Mark Zuckerberg Testifies During Landmark Trial On Social Media Addiction
Mark Zuckerberg is testifying in a landmark Los Angeles trial examining whether Meta and other social media firms can be held liable for designing platforms that allegedly addict and harm children. NBC News reports: It’s the first of a consolidated group of cases – from more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and … ⌘ Read more

Instagram Boss Says 16 Hours of Daily Use Is Not Addiction
Instagram head Adam Mosseri told a Los Angeles courtroom last week that a teenager’s 16-hour single-day session on the platform was “problematic use” but not an addiction, a distinction he drew repeatedly during testimony in a landmark trial over social media’s harm to minors.

Mosseri, who has led Instagram for eight years, is the first high-profile tech ex … ⌘ Read more

The EU Moves To Kill Infinite Scrolling
Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way. From a report: The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps. Brussels has told the company to change several key features, including disabling infinite scrolling, setting strict screen time breaks and changing … ⌘ Read more

Is the ‘Death of Reading’ Narrative Wrong?
Has the rise of hyper-addictive digital technologies really shattered our attention spans and driven books out of our culture? Maybe not, argues social psychologist Adam Mastroianni (author of the Substack Experimental History):

As a psychologist, I used to study claims like these for a living, so I know that the mind is primed to believe narratives of decline. We have a much lower standard … ⌘ Read more

Europe Accuses TikTok of ‘Addictive Design’ and Pushes for Change
TikTok’s endless scroll of irresistible content, tailored for each person’s tastes by a well-honed algorithm, has helped the service become one of the world’s most popular apps. Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal. From a report: On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary d … ⌘ Read more

Ultra-Processed Foods Should Be Treated More Like Cigarettes Than Food, Study Says
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. The Guardian: UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the pa … ⌘ Read more

Internal Messages May Doom Meta At Social Media Addiction Trial
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the first high-profile lawsuit – considered a “bellwether” case that could set meaningful precedent in the hundreds of other complaints – goes to trial. That lawsuit documents the case of a 19-year-old, K.G.M, who hopes the jury will agree that Meta and YouTube caused psychological … ⌘ Read more

Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial
Snap has settled a social media addiction lawsuit just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. “Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were ‘pleased to have been able to resolve … ⌘ Read more

‘NY Orders Apps To Lie About Social Media Addiction, Will Lose In Court’
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed S4505, a law that requires websites to display warnings claiming that features like algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, and autoplay cause addiction – despite, as TechDirt argues, the absence of scientific consensus supporting such claims.

State Senator Andr … ⌘ Read more

The Phone-Based Retirement Is Here
Adult children across the United States are increasingly reporting that their aging parents have developed what looks remarkably like the smartphone addiction [non-paywalled source] typically associated with teenagers, a phenomenon The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel has dubbed “phone-based retirement.” A 2019 Pew Research Center study found people 60 and older spend more than half their daily leisure time – … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org It was too late when I read the “Addictive” warning… 😆 Thanks for sharing this!

Revitalised Mackay waterfront at centre of drug and homelessness problems
The banks of the Pioneer River near Mackay’s CBD are home to makeshift camps nestled among the trees, while others reside in picnic shelters by the wharves. ⌘ Read more

Fuck me, soooooooo beautiful! Awwww! :‘-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfKgi133qo

This focuses more on the landscape part, other episodes also have amazing interactions with the locals. I cannot recommend the Itchy Boots channel enough. It’s in my top three channels of all time I believe. I hardly get the travel bug, but this has now changed. Watching Noraly’s videos brings me great joy. It also shows humanity is not lost, contrary to what one might think in this crazy world. :-)

Caution, this channel gets very addictive!

European Lawmakers Seek EU-Wide Minimum Age To Access AI Chatbots, Social Media
The European Parliament has passed a non-binding resolution urging an EU-wide minimum age of 16 to access social media, video-sharing platforms, and AI chatbots, with parental consent allowed for ages 13-16 and a hard ban for anyone under 13. “It also proposes additional measures, including a ban on addictive design f … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net AI is slot machines for coders:

• “Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24%. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20%. Surprisingly, we find that allowing AI actually increases completion time by 19%–AI tooling slowed developers down.” https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
  
• “Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of ‘almost right’ AI code”: https://venturebeat.com/ai/stack-overflow-data-reveals-the-hidden-productivity-tax-of-almost-right-ai-code
  

The same intermittent reward operant conditioning that gets people addicted to gambling and thinking that if they follow certain rituals they’ll win “next time” drives people’s beliefs that AI tools are making them more productive when they’re making them less productive. I’m going to guess that a side effect of this is that people think they’re typing less when in the longer term they’re typing the same amount or more when you factor in the productivity loss (as far as I’ve read the studies don’t measure this so I’m only guessing).

People are also being rapidly de-skilled by this technology: the more they use it, the more their actual skills atrophy. “Continuous exposure to AI might reduce the ADR (adesoma detection rate) of standard non-AI assisted colonoscopy, suggesting a negative effect on endoscopist behaviour.” (science speak for saying that radiologists get worse at seeing tumors in scans once they’ve used AI): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract

Nobody who cares about the future should be using this stuff for anything.

Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys
Comments ⌘ Read more

AI & LLM Addiction In School ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net Both Gopher and Mastodon are a way for me to “babble”. 😅 I basically shut down Gopher in favor of Mastodon/Fedi last year. But the Fediverse doesn’t really work for me. It’s too focused on people (I prefer topics) and I dislike the addictive nature of likes and boosts (I’m not disciplined enough to ignore them). Self-hosting some Fedi thing is also out of the question (the minimalistic daemons don’t really support following hashtags, which is a must-have for me).

I’ll probably keep reading Fedi stuff, I just won’t post that much, I think.

Coding Through Chaos: Addiction, Recovery and Acceptance
Comments ⌘ Read more

From $30 parmigianas to $15 pints, can Australia still afford the pub?
From our coffee addiction to a weekend pub tradition, some of the simple pleasures many Australians have taken for granted now feel like luxuries. But if patrons can no longer afford to visit the pubs and cafés we love, there may be something bigger at stake. ⌘ Read more

I’m addicted to kissing my cat ⌘ Read more

Fun: Name Your Own Gulf Map for Gulf of America / Mexico
WARNING: My name is Jamie, and I have a sense of humor. This post is for fun and the aforementioned humor. Before proceeding any further, let’s understand what “humor” means so that any potential outrage addicts don’t have a meltdown. Here’s what the Apple Dictionary app defines Humor as; “the quality of being amusing” Now, … Read More ⌘ Read more

10 Fictional Drugs We’re Glad Aren’t Real
Drugs are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they mitigate intense physiological problems, allowing sick, injured, or impaired individuals to function with the rest of society. On the other, some substances have adverse side effects. Extreme cases lead to addiction, constantly leaving you craving an unhealthy amount. Such overdoses then pave the way for […]

The post [10 Fictional Drugs We’re Glad Aren’t Real](https://listverse.com/2025/02/24/10-f … ⌘ Read more

Addicted to the furnace heat ⌘ Read more