> However, I haven't seen a function system based on this model yet.

HN's mirror-universe counterpart, Lobste.rs, works basically this way.

No, addiction involves physical substances interacting with a person's biochemistry. Attempting to extend the concept of addiction to include positive emotions brought on by sensory experiences or behavior is a disingenuous rhetorical tactic.

It's simply not legitimate to redefine "addiction" as anything that people might have an emotional or psychological motivation to participate in.

People trying to use the same terminology to describe social media as is used to describe tobacco or alcohol are trying to sneakily attach the negative associations of those substances to something unrelated entirely to them.

This is a form of deception, and a silly one, since social media has lots of negative aspects that can be argued against in their own right, without needing to engage in manipulative dialog.

This is a normative cultural question, not a medical one. The CDC is far outside its expertise and its proper remit by involving itself in this topic.

No, nicotine is actually addictive in that it creates physical dependency.

So now you're demonstrating that you can criticize social media for its own flaws without having to conflate it with something else. I don't disagree with anything you're saying here, but nothing you're saying here involves attempting to equivocate social media with physical substance abuse.