Akrasia and Addiction in the age of Social Media

Abstract: The concept of weakness of will, or Akrasia, relates to questions regarding the rationality of our choices. Philosophers such as Richard Holton and Alfred Mele have spearheaded the debate since the turn of the century, but quite recently arguments put forth by Nick Heather and Edmund Henden have catapulted the question into a subgenre between the medical, psychological, and philosophical fields. N. Heather argues that it can be useful to categorize addiction as a certain weakness of will meanwhile E. Henden argues against this point. In discussions around topics such as addiction and behavioral psychology, a natural part of the conversation surrounds questions regarding freedom of choice. What constitutes addiction and how does it begin? Do those who are addicted have free will, and in turn, can they be held accountable for their choices? These are some of the questions that materialize when delving into this topic that feasibly might get answered in this paper. However, a lot of the discussion regarding addiction seems to rely quite heavily on the clinical aspects of substance dependency, which can be counterproductive to the discussion as it diverges from philosophy into neurobiological medicine and clinical psychology. Furthermore, substance addictions tend to have a direct effect on habituation and motivation which bypasses certain cognitive systems. To avoid falling into these pitfalls, this paper sets out to examine a rising phenomenon through the same lens: Social Media Addiction (SMA). Since that would fall under behavioral disorder within the spectrum of addiction and therefore not have the same properties as a drug-induced addiction, this article aims to investigate if it exhibits the defining characteristics of akratic action and investigate if SMA fulfills these. In this paper, a comparison between SMA and regular addictions is made in order to identify the differences and similarities. There is a larger discussion around the topic of what acratic core action is and when it is applicable in the case of addiction but also recent arguments for and against classifying addiction as akrasia are presented. Finally, the findings suggest there are cases where addictions can be classified as a form of akrasia which has its own implications and interpretations that are brought up. Limitations of the discussion are brought up and further research is suggested.