Not too surprising. A good rule of thumb is, anything that gives you joy, happiness, or helps with pain & sadness, can be addictive. It can definitely be used as crutch vs. dealing with the underlying issues (such as anxiety).
However, there's a difference between that kind of addiction and chemical addiction which I don't see mentioned in the article. It seems to focus on the crutch aspect, not things like physical ailments from withdrawals and that sort of thing. It's hard to tell.
Generally, moderation should be the key and if you are using it to avoid things that maybe therapy would help with - that's not ideal.
Fwiw. I’m on Mastodon and Firefly amd honestly they are pretty much the same. One had more features, ones more stripped down, but it’s still just share some words, maybe a photo or video & post, the people like, reblog, share, or comment/reply.
I don’t feel the need for longer post, rich text, or 1000 emoji reactions so I stuck with Mastodon.
And Lemmy/Kbin is scratching my Reddit itch, especially as I’m working hard to build an alternative music community here.
If you are into photos more, there’s also Pixelfed.
What’s great about Mastodon and Lemmy specifically though? The apps. Both have a ton! I’m on Mona for Mastodon and Memmy for Lemmy and it’s really made all the difference.
Finally - don’t worry about mastodon.art - they aggressively defederate from everyone all the time.
Very nice, wonder if anyone will make a large media feed version of lemmy for desktop OS. I get the love of old.reddit but personally, I like a large image/video feed like in the apps.
Dead?? Goodness - I love Lemmy and I’m working hard on the community I’m building but Mastodon is jamming! I’ve got like 200k followers on IG and only about 700 followers on Mastodon and the convos and engagements blow away IG!
My thing is follow follow follow and then favorite, reblog, and reply! Been amazing.
Apparently Camel Group Co is one of the largest makers of EV batteries....