Are you an addict? – The Times of India

Once upon a time, some people in society fell prey to addiction. This ranged from soaking themselves in alcohol to getting glued to gambling gambits, consuming drugs to airily smoking a poison called tobacco. These people weren’t considered ‘regular’ though — fables abounded of their weaknesses and destructive tendencies which made more restrained folk look upon them with disfavour.Ironically, today, the number of people expressing their disapproval of addictions is far smaller than the addicts themselves. Being ‘hooked’ has changed. We may not see quite as many drunks careening around now or smell the sourness of cigarettes as closely — yet, many of us ‘normal’ people are addicts today.Consider how we consume junk food — sales crossed $820 billion in 2024 — in a jiffy. We shop increasingly for what we don’t need and unthinkingly discard — 400 million tons of plastic, 120 million tons of textiles and 62 million tons of ewaste were thrown away in 2024. And no matter how weary our eyes grow and our hands hurt holding them up, we refuse to put down our phones. In 2024, over 2.2 billion people lacked clean water — while 5 billion were consuming social media. The average user (and ‘user’ here comes from the world of drugs) spent two hours and 23 minutes daily looking at ‘trending’ videos and ‘viral’ recipes, writing fevered posts, sharing pictures of purchases and shopping some more. Some addictions stem from modern life — stressful and tiring, the brain turns to a little escape, which, often unexpectedly, becomes a new imprisonment. Some draw from age-old tendencies — our bondage to envy, anger and bragging, greed, gluttony and sloth. These were once considered personality flaws — today, manifesting as our ‘likes’, they make a few folk fabulous fortunes.Addictions have consequences — consider the psychological damage social media does, exposing us to constant comparisons (they’re called ‘odious’ for a reason) and callousness. Think of the physical effects of coating our systems with sugar and fat. Imagine societies with people so absorbed in their safaris and selfies, they forget to be social. Think of a planet where, to feed all these hectic addictions, we voraciously consume Earth’s treasures — land, rivers, trees, animals, plants, the air itself — with little thought about results. However, there are solutions — Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, it is vital we understand the addictions being encouraged among us. It is only by seeing the connections — choking AQI comes from you and I — that we can envision a better state, with fewer ‘fixes’ and less problems. Join Times Evoke in navigating our age of addictions — and help create a cleaner tomorrow.