LogFAQs > #893494621

Lokarin posted...

I think they mean chemical addiction, since everything ever is habit forming

They mean whatever excuse they can use to justify their position, because they aren't legitimately concerned with making accurate statements as much as they are using rhetoric to defend their chosen position.

Which is fine, because that's how 98% of all debates on the Internet go anyway, but I still always get a chuckle when someone says "Well, it's not habit forming!", because a lot of them absolutely DO believe that literally.



(And "it's not chemically addictive" wouldn't even necessarily be correct either, because by definition behavioral addiction tends to be a self-reinforcing chemical addiction based on neutrotransmitter reactions in the brain. In some ways, behavioral addictions like gambling addiction, porn/Internet addiction, video game addiction, etc can actually be more damaging than things which are chemically addictive in and of themselves.

Which is why some of the more insidious elements of tobacco addiction were less about the actual nicotine and more about the psychological behaviors and social norms attached to the behavior - ie, it's "cool" to smoke, it's a symbol of "maturity" to smoke, and so on. A large part of why smoking has declined so much over the last few decades has been because the cultural aspects of smoking were attacked directly, not because tobacco itself somehow became less addictive.)


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