addiction

The biggest culprit of children’s addiction to screens is not the TikTok algorithm: it is the parents themselves

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Having children seems to activate a part of the brain that forces us to say the repeated phrase “Leave the machine now,” referring to the cell phone or portable game console. Here, logically, concern about the screen time of the little ones monopolizes the conversations of the most current parents, but the reality is that science is beginning to see that the fault for these behaviors really lies with the parents themselves. A reality. The debate over whether children are born “addicted” to technology fades when we look at the empirical evidence. It’s not just that the devices are designed to capture attention; is that a child’s first and most powerful learning algorithm is to observe their parents who spend the day in front of the screen. Bandura’s theory. To understand why the little ones don’t put down the tablet, you first have to travel back a few decades, to psychologist Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. This theoretical framework, widely validated, establishes that children do not learn primarily by what they are told, but by observation and imitation, especially of those they perceive as close and competent, such as their parents. Literally, we are talking about sponges that do not lose detail of anything. Four phases. In order to learn through this route, it is first necessary for the child to pay attention to the behavior of his or her ‘reference’ adult, such as his or her father or mother. From there, he will begin to retain the pattern made by his caregiver in his memory, almost as a normative behavior, and develop the physical ability to imitate the gesture. But it goes further, since by observing reinforcements, such as their parents laughing when they see the cell phone, an association with a positive stimulus is created. This is really important because you see that doing that action is something that is not dangerous at all, but rather fun and enjoyable. Modern pediatrics. Beyond this theory, a recent meta-analysis Published this year in the prestigious journal JAMA Pediatrics, it has analyzed the impact of the use of technology by parents in the presence of their children. This brings together a total of 21 previous investigations and covers 14,900 participants from 10 countries, empirically demonstrating that there is a direct association between the time that parents spend in front of a screen and the time that their children end up spending with them. But in addition, it has also been seen how it can generate a negative impact on children’s cognition or an increase in externalizing behaviors such as tantrums or anxiety. The cell phone on the table. The disconnection created by the smartphone not only creates a role model, but breaks the two-way interaction that children need for healthy brain development. Something relevant is that 70% of parents admit to being distracted by their mobile phone when they are with their children, and here is a study in Pediatrics in 2014 where this phenomenon was observed; This phenomenon has already been observed in the fast food restaurant environment. According to your data40% of parents were so engrossed in their devices during meals that they ignored their children completely. But even worse was when children tried to get their attention, often escalating their behavior, and simply causing parents to respond more physically or verbally when they felt interrupted. The recommendations. The American Pediatric Association is quite clear pointing out that children under 18 months should completely avoid screens, and in the 2 to 5 year age group it can be introduced for a maximum of 1 hour a day and as long as high-quality and accompanied content is watched. Images | hessam nabavi In Xataka | We say we are “depressed” beyond our means: where does the illness end and where does the illness begin?

This Netflix series is a great portrait of addiction and anxiety

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There are series that work because the plot is engaging, and there are series that work because they delve deeply into how our heads work. ‘Queen’s Gambit managed to do both at the same time, and in fact, five years after its premiere in Netflixcan boast an impeccable and unusual track record: researchers cite her in academic psychiatry journals to explain how addictions work in the real world. Released in October 2020 and created by Scott Frank and Allan Scott based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, the miniseries already has 112.8 million views according to platform data (it is the most viewed miniseries in its history) and won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries in addition to the Emmy for Best Directing of a Limited Series. But what makes this sketch of the life of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) special, a chess prodigy who grows up in an orphanage where she develops a dependence on tranquilizers and, later, alcohol, is that researchers from ‘The British Journal of Psychiatry‘They analyzed it in 2022 as a clinical study case. What the series does well is not turning the protagonist’s rooms into a decorative element around her genius. According to the publication, hThere are three consistent triggers for Beth’s substance use. throughout the series: shame, anxiety and isolation, all three in a chain. A defeat damages her self-image, anxiety about revenge paralyzes her, and consumption arises as an avoidance mechanism and the isolation that this consumption causes, which aggravates the first two factors. A perfect storm with very recognizable symptoms for psychologists. And also the solution to the problems presented by the series makes sense: other characters reveal to him the real cost of continuing to drink, others help him restore some of his damaged self-esteem, and the collective support of his rivals allows him not to relapse. According to the study, resolving underlying issues is what opens the door to sobriety. All in a series that not only has a first-class setting and performances, but can also boast scientific support in aspects that are often ignored in fiction. In Xataka | One of Prime Video’s main action heroes returns to the platform today, although in a new format

In 2026 we are hooked on mobile. In 1929 people were alarmed by the “addiction” to crossword puzzles

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At a time when heroin and cocaine were legal tender, activists, journalists and legislators decided that what was really worrying, what was really was destroying western civilization They were crossword puzzles. Yes, as it sounds: crossword puzzles. Yesterday’s moral panics. Thanks to Jose César Peralesone of the country’s leading addiction neuroscience experts, we come to what is likely to become my favorite case of “moral panic”: the newspaper’s anti-hobby movements. Although I would have to search the monumental “Verbalia” of Marius Serra To confirm this, popular wisdom tells us that this evolution of magic square What we know today as a crossword puzzle was invented in 1913 by the English journalist, Arthur Wynne, while working on the ‘Fun’ supplement of the ‘New York World’ newspaper. where does it come from. The success of the hobby was spectacular and throughout the decade newspapers around the world incorporated it into their pages. In 1922, comic strips about people doing crossword puzzles were already circulating, and in 1924, the New York Library assured that “the latest fad to hit libraries is the crossword puzzle” complaining bitterly that “puzzle fanatics” monopolized “dictionaries and encyclopedias scaring away readers and students who need these books in their daily work.” Popularization. That library report was not something isolated. In fact, during 1924, voices of alarm against the threat posed by crossword puzzles became increasingly popular. That year, as the Harrisburg Telegraph stated“professors at the University of Michigan had banned crossword puzzles in their classes.” “Crossword addiction”. Concerned about crossword puzzle fever, the Kingsport Times-News, a Tennessee newspaper, denounced that “if legislators have acquired the habit, as they presumably have, it is difficult to see how they will find time to legislate” and lamented that “opposition to crossword puzzle addiction had not yet been organized”, although they were convinced that it would soon do so. After all, until now he had only “interfered with relatively unimportant matters”, but as the addiction grew the problems would increase. It sounds familiar to us. I have no doubt, As Perales himself pointed outthat opposition to crossword puzzles was nothing more than a “hobby” in those wonderful 1920s that blew up after the crash of ’29. That is to say, to the chagrin of the Kingsport Times-News columnist, that anti-puzzle movement was never organized (or turned into a lobby). However, it is a paradigmatic example of what moral panic is; that is, “a reaction by a group of people based on the false or exaggerated perception of some cultural behavior.” It is something that we have seen repeatedly with video games and that has become an urban myth. But it is when we see it in things like crossword puzzles (or in the dozens of examples that this “technophobia archive” has that is ‘Pessimists Archive‘) when it becomes especially evident. It’s good to remember it from time to time. In Xataka | Helping the waiter clear the table seems like a kind gesture: psychologists see something much deeper In Xataka | The mirage of the hyperpresent father: they dedicate four times more time to their children, but mothers are still on the verge of collapse In Xataka | “It doesn’t give me life”: the phrase that summarizes the vital state of an entire generation of Spaniards in their thirties Image | Ross Sneddon

expensive literary retreats to overcome mobile addiction

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February weekend, Welsh coast. A group of women sits around a table accompanied by appetizing portions of pasta and fruit. They ignore each other very politely. Nobody looks at their cell phones, but at the voluminous books they carry with them. They open them, begin to read their own in silence, and pay 1,200 euros (or more) for that strange privilege. Expanding business. In the United States and the United Kingdom, a new category of travel experience has been born: reading retreats. A group of people meets in a rural house or hotel boutique during a weekend to advance their personal readings, in friendly silence and without obligation to read a common book, as happens with reading clubs. Very expensive and exclusive, prices vary from company to company Page Break (between $1,000 and $1,200 per weekend) up to Ladies Who Lit (£3,450 for four days in Mallorca) or Bad Bitch Book Club (between $950 and $1,750). It’s his thing. Although today it is perceived as a solitary activity, reading as something introspective is a historically anomalous perception. For centuries, reading was a social practice: families gathered by the warmth of the fireplace to listen to loud sermons, women sharing stories while they sewed, travelers exchanging books in train cars. In fact, the appearance of the railway in the 19th century generated an entire industry: the publisher Henry Walton Smith began selling cheap novels on the platforms of London stations, and Allen Lane installed a vending machine for books from the Penguin publishing house (the Penguincubator) in the subway lobbies. It is read less.The decline in reading rates is well documented. From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure daily fell from 28% to 16%, approximately 3% annually. The report from which these data come, prepared from more than 236,000 participants, indicates that the drop is more pronounced among the population with the lowest income and lowest educational level, although the decline affects all demographic groups. Teleworking has also affected a historical reading space: the commute to work. The importance of BookTok. But in the face of this general decline in reading rates, especially in more modest classes, there is a demand for reading as a form of leisure that disconnects from the connected and hyperactive rhythm in which we live. Paradoxically (coming from a social network), the TikTok reading community has a lot to do with this new vision of reading: with 200,000 million views under the hashtag booktokthis social network is already a sales engine that rescues titles from oblivion and catapults works by independent authors to the best-seller lists. According to the founder of The Literary LeagueAccording to Gabi Valladares, who has organized reading retreats at the Scribner’s Lodge resort in the Catskills, “book vacations offer a built-in connection point,” adding that they are “undemanding,” combining time with authors and other fans with free hours to simply read. It disconnects. The idea, even though the Internet is the platform for disseminating this type of retreat and its philosophy, is to disconnect from the online world, in search of recovering uninterrupted reading. As Leah Price points outauthor of ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Books’, the current problem is not work, historically the main competitor to reading, but “the competition from short-form digital content.” The year 2018, when Wi-Fi reached the entire New York subway network, was described as “horrible” for reading in the subway by Uli Beutter Cohen, who interviews travelers about their reading for his Instagram account Subway Book Review. Some clubs. Bad Bitch Book Club was born in 2018 as a Facebook group of friends with common interests. By 2020, confinement boosted the page to 38,000 members worldwide, receiving income of around $200,000 annually through a Patreon subscription of 14 per month. Their summer camps in The Forks, Maine, received 500 applications for 240 spots spread over three weekends. Page Breakfounded in 2024 by Mikey Friedman, has a different proposal: participants read aloud (in turns, we imagine) the same novel throughout the weekend, interspersed with frugal meals and themed games, getting closer to the idea of ​​a traditional book club. For a recent retreat in the Joshua Tree, California desert, the company received 50 applications for 15 spots, which were assigned by lottery. Your goal: millennials and zetas too busy to commit to a conventional book club. Women. The profile of attendees is overwhelmingly female. Emma Donaldson, founder of Boutique Book Breaks (spa hotel retreats in the English countryside), notes that to date she has only had one male guest. The organizers attribute this bias to the feminization of the publishing industry in recent decades and to marketing for these retreats that adopts the language of well-being: candles, bath salts, non-alcoholic cocktails… Theorist DeNel Rehberg Sedo connects the popularity of these women’s reading clubs with the awareness groups of the 1960s and 1970s, speaking of spaces that “continue the training of women and distance them from domestic responsibilities.” The metaphor of well-being is not accidental. When the debate Often focused on choosing between reading as accelerated consumerism or as a reflective practice, these retreats offer a middle ground. The possibility of reading slowly, without being accountable to any algorithm, in the company of other people who also do not understand why the hell reading a book has become something that costs so much work these days. Header | Photo of Michael Kyule in Unsplash

An app promises to free men from their “addiction” to porn. Behind it is something darker: the NoFap movement

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“Embrace this pause. Reflect before you relapse.” It doesn’t refer to alcohol or drugs, but to porn. With this claim, Quittr is presented, an app for people looking for overcome your porn addiction. Although you can register as a woman, the app is clearly focused on the male audience, So I pretended to be Manuel 28 and made an account. It didn’t take me long to realize that giving up porn is the excuse to sell something else. As soon as you start, the app asks you a questionnaire about your consumption habits, such as how often you watch porn and what negative symptoms you have noticed in your life (it caught my attention that one of them was “Feeling distant from God”, this already gives clues as to where we are headed). As soon as I finished the questionnaire they already had a personalized plan for Manuel and they also promised me that by June 7 he would have stopped porn. The bad part is that it was going to cost me 31.99 euros per year, 20.99 euros if I accepted the offer. Giving up porn has a price. I haven’t paid, but I have been researching the features that Quittr offers. The app tracks your progress, which is represented by “the tree of life,” and the longer you go without porn, the more it grows. It also offers motivational exercises, has a “panic button” in case you are about to relapse, and also allows you to chat with other members of the community. Based on science, but little Both on the website and in the app itself they say several times that Quittr’s method is based on science, but let’s see if this is the case. As soon as you finish the questionnaire, a message appears that claims that pornography is a drug and that “releases a chemical in the brain called dopamine.” According to the WHO definitiona drug is “a natural or synthetic compound that acts on the central nervous system and produces alterations in the processes that regulate thoughts, emotions, perception and behavior.” Watching porn can generate pleasure, but nothing is being introduced into the body, it is a natural response. In this sense, if pornography is a drug because it “releases dopamine”, we should also consider anything that gives us pleasure a drug, from food to keeping the house tidy. What it can do is cause compulsive consumption, which we could describe as addiction, which is very different. The ICD-11 clinical guide includes “compulsive sexual behavior disorder”, but of course, that sells less. In the app’s description they also state that their method is “based on extensive research into the science of addictions,” but there is no link to any study. The NoFap movement Browsing the web, I have found that there are several influencers who promote the app. Well, they are all Christian fitness content creators such as Jeremiah Jones either Caleb Hammett. When I entered the news blog section it was already clear to me what this was about. Some of the news from Quittr’s blog. He NoFap movement It was born as a kind of support group for people who want to stop masturbation, either because they perceive it as an addiction or also for religious reasons. This idea began to become popular a few years ago and its scientific basis is a study conducted in 2003 which linked increased testosterone levels to abstinence from masturbation. The study was refuted, but continues to be cited in these circles. In the beginning, NoFap followers They were looking to increase their testosterone and improve your health, but Nowadays it has become a lifestyle with a strong religious component. In Spain we have the reference of René ZZ, whose content gave a radical turn from tattoos to religion, personal improvement and the abandonment of masturbation. Applications like Quittr or Relay They are sold as the solution to porn addiction, which is something that many people will see as positive, but they do not highlight the religious part that advocates these rigid and moralistic abstinence models. In slate They tell the story of one of these men who entered NoFap looking to quit porn and ended up trapped in a cycle of relapse and extreme shame that ended up seriously affecting his mental health. Quittr’s other secret In addition to the moralistic component that Quittr hides, there is another fact that has recently become known and it is a security problem in its app. They count in 404media that several hackers notified the creators of the app of a serious vulnerability that exposed the data of its users, among whom there are minors. The failure was no small thing. This was a bug in Google Firebase configuration that allowed anyone to authenticate as an administrator and read the database. User data includes age, how often they watch porn, and even messages about their masturbation habits. The problem is no longer that vulnerability exists, it is that Those responsible for Quittr did nothing for at least six months. The first researcher who notified the company even spoke with the founder of the app Alex Slater, who responded that he would solve it in a matter of hours, but months later it was still not solved. Finally, they reacted when 404media insisted for the third time. Image | Franco Alva in Unsplash In Xataka | There is already a European country that requires you to be 18 years old to watch porn on the Internet. And there are already a thousand ways to skip it

Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

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Prediction markets are no longer a niche of the Internet and datanerds to become the new obsession of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are receiving multi-billion dollar valuations by repackaging traditional bets as sophisticated financial instruments. The image that defines the moment occurred recently in Manhattan, according to Bloomberg: the patriarch of the New York Stock Exchange (70 years old, impeccable suit) closing a multimillion-dollar deal with the founder of Polymarket (27 years old, t-shirt and plastic bottle). That meeting sealed the fate of the sector: betting is no longer a game, it is finance. Why is it important. We are facing a radical cultural and regulatory change. By redefining bets as “event contracts”, these platforms try to circumvent gambling legislation (which in Spain would control Consumption) to sneak into the traditional financial system, with the support of giants such as the owners of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The panoramic. Kalshi is already worth $10 billion and Polymarket is looking for $12 billion. They are not beach bars, as we said, the owner of the NYSE has invested there. The hockey league (NHL) and Donald Trump’s media company are already signing deals. It is the traditional financial system embracing chance. It is, above all, legitimation. Semantic reengineering. Polymarket’s true success is not technological, it is linguistic. They have eliminated the stigma of the gambler by changing the dictionary: It’s not a bet. It’s an “investment.” It is not a betting house. It’s a “exchange of contracts”. You are not a gambler. you are a trader which analyzes “market sentiment.” An example of the absurdity of some cases: people betting by Elon Musk entering the race to be president of the United States, oblivious to the fact that Musk was born in South Africa and therefore cannot become president, since the US Constitution vetoes the presidency to foreigners. That is to say: all those bets are money thrown away from minute one. How it works. Instead of betting 50 euros on Trump winning, you buy a “share” of that result that is worth 1 dollar if you are right. This allows the same person who would win or lose money at roulette to now win or lose it in an app with stock market charts. Although the savings fly the same, the user feels smarter and less guilty: he believes that he is operating in something more similar to the IBEX, not in a casino. What’s coming. There is a civil war brewing. The old guard of the game (the owners of traditional casinos) see this as unfair competition. Jay Snowden, CEO of Penn Entertainment (a casino and sports betting company), has already warned: This is a direct threat to your industry. Prediction markets and games of chance overlap. In conclusion. Polymarket has managed to sophisticate gambling addiction for a generation that believes itself too smart to play games of chance. They have created the perfect casino for those who despise casinos, allowing them to risk savings under the illusion of doing financial analysis. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion Featured image | Hush Naidoo Jade PhotographyMockuuups Studio

Four -hour tails for the Labubu store in Barcelona illustrate that they are more than a fashion: they are an addiction

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Labubu fever moves globally. In Spain it takes time being a phenomenon And this is certified by the opening of a new permanent store in Barcelona that already has four -hour tails and people traveling from other countries To buy in it. Pop mart, The Chinese company that manufactures these dolls Collectibles, has generated a millionaire business with inherited tactics of video games and bets. Phenomenon in Barcelona. The new Pop Mart, and only permanent in Spain (in November last year the brand opened A pop-up also in Barcelona), has opened in the portal of L’àngel, one of the main commercial arteries of the Catalan capital. The first day were seen tails of more than 200 meters and astronomical expenses: with prices that are between 12 and 240 euros, there are those who confess to having Inverted 700 euros in these dolls for being “an investment.” What are they? The Pop Mart are the dolls that the company of the same name manufactures and can be purchased Through its websitein specific stores such as this new one in Barcelona, and even in vending machines. They are divided into series of variants of the same doll, thus promoting collecting. His most successful product is Labubu, a creature with a monkey and disturbing smile. It is part of a broader collection called The Monsters, and generated last year 419 million dollars in benefits for Pop Mart. Massive success. The company was founded in 2000 and has ended up becoming one of China’s best known brands at the global level, with milestones such as its actions in 2024 They rose 370%. They even have their own attraction park in Beijing, Pop Land40 square kilometers. According to data from Time130 of the company’s 530 stores at the end of last year are outside China. In 2024, its benefits for international sales rose 375%. According to him The company itselfin 2024 it had benefits of 1.8 billion dollars, of which 40% came from outside China. The reasons for success. The first and most obvious is viral contagion in networks. It is obvious that there are more and more celebrities and influencers that show your labubusand it is usually pointed out as the initiator of the viral phenomenon to Lisa, from the K-Pop Blackpink group, Although now the dolls are in the hands of famous Americans and European such as Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Madonna or Kim Kardashian. Fever is such that they have already generated their own falsification marketwhich swarm for markets such as Wallapop, Milanuncios or Vinted, sometimes with swollen prices. However, beyond the imitation behavior of celebrities, there are other reasons for success: the gamification of the phenomenon. Little thing. The first step that Pop Mart takes to generate addiction is to generate shortage: there are no specimens of the doll, and take advantage of Pop Mart Mart. A small art that many Influencers They explain How to master social media accounts. As explained This Rolling Stone articlethe purchase process is already a maze of voluble rules tests and that include virtual dead ends in the store, and knowing how to enter the Store At the right time of the Just day (Pop Mart does not warn when the Restocks will be). The Labubus Gacha. The Pop Labubu Mart and the Gacha video games (In which random awards are paid with virtual coins, although in many cases the games have systems free-to-play) share the mechanics of random collecting, that is, they are steroid slots. Labubu They are sold in surprise boxes or Blind Boxeswhere buyers do not know exactly what figure they will receive. Labubu reward to the most constant (or fortunate) with “secret” unusual figures and the Gacha games have certain extremely difficult characters to obtain. Both systems are designed to generate addiction and compulsive purchase, with psychological manipulation through hidden probabilities (although today in video games They are regulated) and limited events. The key is to convert uncertainty into an entertainment experience for which consumers are willing to pay, creating a cycle of expectation, emotion and disappointment that drives to try again. Header | Dushawn Jovic in Unspash In Xataka | There is a 30 -euro doll over a lot of mobiles in Spain. Welcome to the fashion of the ‘Sonny Angel’

There are people so hooked to the AI ​​who are creating groups to alcoholics anonymous to overcome their addiction

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We pass Many hours looking at the mobilelWe blame our lack of concentration And there are even studies that claim that They affect our memory. Until recently, the fault was almost exclusive to apps such as Instagram or Tiktok and his damn ‘Infinite Scroll’but now there is a new culprit: the AI. There are people so hooked to talk to chatbots that have even created help groups to leave it. What’s happening. There are more and more cases of people hooked to AI. There are those who admit to be Friends of a chatbot and even who They are paired with an AI. Although it is not the only one, one of the platforms that He is hooking his users is Character.AI. Here we can create a character to our liking and chat with him as if it were real. In 404 average They tell Nathan’s case, an 18 -year -old student who spent hours wake up with the characters he had created, to the point of preferring them before his real friends. And there are many more like him. Help groups. There are many people in a situation similar to Nathan’s. In Reddit there are several aid communities for people who want to stop using chatbots, how are you which has almost 900 members and is specifically focused on Character.AI users. There are also others such as Chatbotaddiction where members talk about their addictions to other IAS. In these groups, users share their progress by leaving their addiction counting the days that have sober either They look for support when they have a relapseas if they were alcoholics anonymous. But it goes beyond Reddit, the Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous It also includes AI addiction and offer online meetings for those affected. Chatbots want you to use them. Apps like Instagram or Tiktok are designed to spend as long as possible in them And the Chatbots IA also have their techniques so that we do not forget them. Recently, several consumer defense groups in the United States presented a Formal complaint against companies such as Character.AI for allowing the use of Therapy chatbots. In the text they detail the tactics of these platforms to make users use them again. In the case of Character.AIonce you have talked to a character, you start receiving emails to open a new conversation. The bombardment and the ease of falling again has made some users who want to leave it reach the point of Ask the company to block your IP address. A mirage. In This study by the MIT and OpenAI They explored how it affects us to interact with a chatbot in our mental health. Many people who come to Chatgpt to seek emotional support seek to placate the feeling of loneliness and, although it works in the short term, intensive use is associated with higher levels of isolation and emotional dependence. In This other study They deepen the false empathy. Often users who connect with a chatbot talk about how they feel more understood than talking to other people. The fact that these apps are always available and offer reconforting responses creates a false sensation of empathy and safety in users that can lead to dependence or addiction. Image | Gemini In Xataka | I have asked the AI ​​any bullshit and now I am writing a news about her

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