Is it possible to help someone with a social media addiction?

[The Gifted Kid]

Don't want to power level but I know someone close who has a major twitter addiction. On the surface they seem well adjusted but more and more they seem to be constantly having to whip out their phone even during conversation to check their twitter. I looked them up and they have well over 10k tweets which really concerns me. Their thoughts and opinions are also seemingly becoming more warped and distorted by twitter.

Is there any way to help a person like this? I know it's easy to just write them off if it isn't someone close to you but when you see a person change and fall into an addiction before your eyes it's really just something else.

 

[Kiwi On The Go]

Break their phone.

 

[The Gifted Kid]

Break their phone.

Not only would they be extremely mad at me but they'd also just go buy a new one which wouldn't solve the problem.

 

[Shig O'nella]

Bullet. Best to be sure about these things, twitter addiction is horribly contagious.

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

If you care enough about this person where you want to help them, just talk to them about it directly.
Sounds like it's someone close to you, so maybe they respect your opinion enough to listen.

 

[Minecraft Axolotl]

Lost a friend to a twitter addiction not that long ago. Told them they had a problem and in response they called me every trigger word under the sun and tweeted memes about how horrible I was.
Cut them out
They've spent the last half a year seething about it and recently claimed they had trauma from me telling them the hard truth.


Let them figure it out on their own. They'll never understand your point unless they can see the damage that website causes for themselves

 

[Red Hood]

Real talk you can't help an addict that doesn't want to be helped.

 

[Testacles Maximus]

Not only would they be extremely mad at me but they'd also just go buy a new one which wouldn't solve the problem.

Keep breaking them.

 

[stupid frog]

>Twitter

They're gone.

 

[Queen of Tarts]

Have an impromptu intervention. Sit them down, talk to them calmy, call them a fucking loser who needs to get a life.

 

[libRT]

Real talk you can't help an addict that doesn't want to be helped.

Pretty much this, unless you can get them to think critically. Once they choose their authority on truth, its a grind to change their mind.

Best chance is pavlovian ridicule, any retarded takes they have, don't just point out how retarded they are but make it sting. In the hope that they then associate social media with retardation; however, they're probably too hypnotised by the shadows on the wall to care about leaving the cave and just write you off as a bigot.

 

[Mariposa Electrique]

No, once they twerk for bitcoins for a man in China. It's all over.

 

[Useless(?) Boomer]

As someone who has wasted a lot of time trying to help addicts, I'd strongly suggest you save yourself.

After much experience with addicts I put them in two categories:

1. The type that take serious, legitimate steps to reform themselves soon after their behavior starts having negative effects on relationships/other people. That doesn't mean they don't slip up, but there's no need for long discussions with them trying to convince them of the need to quit; they quickly understand they need to quit for themselves and OTHERS, and they at least legitimately try to change.
2. The type that don't really take their addiction seriously, that are unaffected by negative ways their behavior affects others. For these types i believe the "addiction" is really a symptom/manifestation of a personality disorder. BPD/NPD/ASPD (it's all shit, who cares which is which) people don't give a shit about other people, or do only when convenient. That is why they don't really try to stop. And that is why appeals to their better nature don't work: they don't have a better nature.

Only help type 1. If someone seems exceedingly stubborn about recognizing reality, they are not type 1. Don't fall into the trap of "they don't see how it affects people, i need to help them understand." They fucking see just fine, they don't care.

Good luck.

 

[Hallucinogenic Penguin]

Have a similar experience with a friend who has gone full Twitter “muh diversity, BLM, and Troons”
He claims to be a centrist still but he is damn too left in the social aspect. Thankfully he hasn’t gone so far that he’s advocating for “MAP rights” but if that time or environment ever comes for him and he speaks out he’ll get chucked in the cancel wagon. He started this path probably close to two years ago and amplified it to 11 once Saint Nog Of the Fentanyl overdosed.

 

[The Gifted Kid]

Have a similar experience with a friend who has gone full Twitter “muh diversity, BLM, and Troons”
He claims to be a centrist still but he is damn too left in the social aspect. Thankfully he hasn’t gone so far that he’s advocating for “MAP rights” but if that time or environment ever comes for him and he speaks out he’ll get chucked in the cancel wagon. He started this path probably close to two years ago and amplified it to 11 once Saint Nog Of the Fentanyl overdosed.

This pretty much describes who I'm dealing with. They started using twitter back around 2014/15 "trolling" mainly left leaning people. However I think they've spent too much time in the company of the twitter hive-mind and have essentially had their reality distorted without them realizing it. They've done a total 180 on several stances for no explicable reason. It's now starting to be a real annoyance for me when they constantly bring up politics or their "twitter wins" in conversation. I've known this person all my life and I can't really cut them out which makes the whole thing even more depressing.