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People Are Sharing “Modern-Day Poisons” That Are Normalized Now But Will Probably Be Seen As Dangerous In The Future (28 Answers)
One curious Reddit user recently posed the question, “What’s a modern day poison people willingly ingest?” And readers had plenty to say. From nicotine to social media, we’ve gathered some of the most spot-on responses below, so be sure to upvote the toxic things you’d like to have less of in your life. And regardless of what others try to tell you, remember that there’s never any obligation to partake in these poisons. Take care of yourselves, pandas!
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Facebook
Edit: Facebook, Instagram, etc. Any social media where you're comparing your life against other people's lives
I’m gonna say Vaping. I knocked it on the head as my New Year’s resolution. First time I’ve been completely nicotine free, and still going strong, but I genuinely felt like I was about to cough my lungs up about 90% of the time vaping. If I have to be honest, I don’t miss either, but I started vaping to stop smoking. I hate seeing young kids and teens do it- ones who wouldn’t have even considered smoking.
EDIT: I’m talking disposable vapes, should’ve clarified that beforehand.
Outrage. It’s straight up poison to your mental health, but we thrive on it, yearn for it. Places like Tik-tok, twitter, and r/PublicFreakout pass it out like dealers for little more than some attention—poisoning people to feel popular. Worse, it’s useful to those in control, so there’s no escaping it. Political parties and activists need you outraged, one-tracked, immune to real empathy, and motivated to solidify their power, so here we are.
An excess of almost anything (overly) processed. Most people consume too much meat, too much sugar, too much salt, too much saturated fat, too much caffeine, too many nitrates/nitrites, etc etc. I try to eat relatively healthy but even I definitely consume too much sugar and too much caffeine. It's so hard to stop once you're used to it, modern processed foods are pretty addictive and it's scary.
Edit: I'm aware that not all types of processing are inherently bad. This is not a scientific forum, it's an AskReddit thread and I'm sure most people know exactly which kind of processing I mean by that.
Negativity.
No, not being angry or sad for legit reasons, but just choosing to look at everything in a negative light.
This is coming from an optimist so take this with a grain of salt.
Those talking videos with like 3 things happening on the screen simultaneously.
Social media is already absolutely atrocious for attention span, using that many distractions on a 30s clip just exponentially enhances that problem.
In the US, Red 40. Banned in several countries and restricted in many others. When kids get a "sugar rush," a lot of the time it is just the effect of red dye 40.
It has been linked to aggression and mental disorders like attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in children. A review of 34 studies estimated that 8% of children with ADHD living in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada may have behavioral symptoms related to synthetic food colors. Studies in children with ADHD have demonstrated that restricting synthetic food dyes from the diet led to significant improvements in symptoms.
