The 2010 US Surgeon General’s report states that “nicotine is the key chemical compound that causes and sustains the powerful addicting effects of commercial tobacco products.” This report followed a landmark review published in 1988 which had also concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive and nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. The Royal College of Physicians’ 2000 report on nicotine addiction states that “it is reasonable to conclude that nico-
through tobacco smoke should be regarded as an addictive drug, and tobacco use as the means of self-administration” and concludes that: “Cigarettes are highly efficient nicotine delivery devices and are as addictive as drugs such as heroin or cocaine.” Paradoxically, while nicotine is a stimulant drug, effects of both stimulation and relaxation may be felt. The mental and physical state of the smoker, and the situation in which smoking occurs, can influence the way in which a particular cigarette will affect psychological perceptions. The addictive effect of nicotine is linked to its capacity to trigger the release of dopamine - a chemical in the brain that is associated with feelings of pleasure.
NICOTINE WITHDRAWAL SYMPTONS
Almost one in three drugs overdoses in Europe were recorded in the UK as the continent’s rate of drug deaths rose for a third year in a row, according to the European drugs agency. About eight in every 1,000 Britons are high-risk opioid users, the highest rate in Europe. In 2015, the year the EMCDDA’s
researchers investigated, England and Wales recorded a 26% rise in heroin deaths.In separate research published alongside the report, ECMDDA researchers said the UK and Hungary were the two countries that had seen “more extensive use of novel psychoactive substances” among low-income groups
The harm lies in their change in behaviour. Their addiction means spending increasing amount of time online to produce the same pleasurable effect, and it means social media is the main activity they engage in above all others. It also means taking away attention from other tasks, experiencing unpleasant feelings from reducing or stopping interaction with social media and restarting the activity very soon after stopping completely.
W e should also be concerned about the effect of social media on sleep and doing less “offlineâ€?, such as making time for work responsibilities and direct face-toface social interaction. It has also been linked to depression and loneliness, both of which may be the cause or the effect of social media addiction. Millennials report compulsively checking social network proďŹ les and updates. They can make riskier decisions and be open to online exploitation. They often mistakenly believe
That’s the average amount of time, the company said, that users spend each day on its Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms (and that’s not counting the popular messaging app WhatsApp). Maybe that doesn’t sound like so much. But there are only 24 hours in a day, and the average person sleeps for 8.8 of them. That means more than one-sixteenth of the average user’s waking time is spent on Facebook. The average time that users spend on Facebook is nearing an hour. That’s more than any other leisure activity surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the exception of watching television programs and movies (an average per day of 2.8 hours). It’s more time than people spend reading (19 minutes); participating in sports or exercise (17 minutes); or social events (four minutes). It’s almost as much time as people spend eating and drinking (1.07 hours).
Addiction may seem a bit of a strong word to use in the context of social media, but addiction refers to any behaviour that is pleasurable and is the only reason to get through the day. Everything else pales into insignificance. Millennials may not get liver damage or lung cancer from social media, but it can be damaging nonetheless. The amount of time people spend on social media is constantly increasing. Teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms, while 30% of all time spent online is now allocated to social media interaction. And the majority of that time is on mobile - 60% of social media time spent is facilitated by a mobile device. Mediakix calculated average time spent per day on YouTube (40 minutes), Facebook (35), Snapchat (25), Instagram (15) and Twitter (one) and projected those figures out over a lifetime, arriving at a total of five years and four months.