> But Alexander wondered: is this about the drug or might it be related to the setting they were in? To test his hypothesis, he put rats in “rat parks,” where they were among others and free to roam and play, to socialize and to have sex. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed. A social community beat the power of drugs.
I've considered the rebuttal and study you cited. I can't envision any social environment that would permanently stop people from obsessively looking at their phones.
It's possible to provide an activity that would temporarily redirect the obsession but we're talking about 24 hours. At some point the individual will resume the obsessive behavior.
I also bet that the rat park study would eventually fail given a long enough amount of time. The rats would eventually get bored of their environment and experiment with the drug filled bottle. I speculate all this of course. Can't be positive.
> But Alexander wondered: is this about the drug or might it be related to the setting they were in? To test his hypothesis, he put rats in “rat parks,” where they were among others and free to roam and play, to socialize and to have sex. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed. A social community beat the power of drugs.