“I was an early adopter of the internet,” starts a personal essay by The New York Times opinion writer Maia Szalavitz, who openly discusses previous chemical addictions. Her description of behavioral addictions will be familiar to people spanning the dial-up era to Web 2.0 and into our datacenter-fueled world today. Let’s double-click.

Starting with “24/7 enthusiasm” for browsing the early web, to her escalating use of “my later obsession” social media, the author is now avoiding AI chatbots given their potential for addictive use. Why? “Attachment hacking.”

She defines it as such:

Attention hacking addicts people, in part, by providing varying rewards almost randomly. It’s how casinos and social media keep people engaged: by manipulating consumers’ experience to make elusive gains seem close. In the brain, this intermittent reinforcement causes massive spikes of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with desire.

There is growing research to back up social media addiction. There’s also mounting evidence that suggests AI chatbots are so insidious in part (and you know this) because they are so flattering (that’s an astute observation, it adds). Add in elements that hijack the brain’s reward system and, well, you’re on a website called Addiction News so you know what might come next.

The idea that the addicted mind is “hacked” is a familiar analogy in the internet age. In the book The Hacking of the American Mind (2018), author Robert H. Lustig explores how corporations are incentivized to produce products that encourage addictive behavior. His primary example is the addition of sugar to stimulate repetitive overeating. In it, he writes,

Reward and contentment rely on the presence of the other. Nevertheless, they are decidedly different phenomena. Yet both have been slowly and mysteriously vanishing from our global ethos as the prevalence of addiction and depression continues to climb. 

Note the distinction between “reward” and “contentment.” Two different things. Do they happen in sequence or simultaneously? He posits neither. They are different.

But what comes before a person experiences addiction, when they are chasing these sensations? Before all the Chaz-ing, as one acquaintance calls her frequent chats with ChatGPT. And before all the “surfing” or “liking”, to use descriptors of bygone eras on the early web and social media, respectively, as described by Szalavitz? 

What came first has always come first: displacement.

Szalavitz’s Times essay doesn’t get into her chemical dependencies, aside from the mention that she struggled with cocaine and heroin. But note that her journey moved from addictive chemicals to addictive behavioral patterns. To me, this shifting of reward —or is it more accurately relief? —  isn’t unusual. A shifting presentation of addiction is a common experience and supports the idea of displacement as The Unified Theory of Addiction.

Szalavitz is certainly not alone in substituting one addictive thing for another. Substitution is poorly understood. One group of researchers looked at 63 studies and identified two subtypes of substitute addictions: long-term replacement and temporary replacement. This led the authors to conclude, in part, the need for “increased awareness of substitute addictions and its potential consequences for recovery”.

If substitution addiction — plainly, shifting one addiction for another — is recognized, what does that suggest about what’s happening first: displacement? Displacement is the triggering element. Its output is shapeshifting, emerging where access and needs exist.

Should I ask an AI chatbot to tell me more? 

Written by Katie McCaskey. First published July 28, 2026.

Sources:

“I’ve Struggled With Addiction. I’m Staying Away From A.I. Chatbots,” The New York Times, July 19, 2026.

“Prevalence of social media addiction across 32 nations: Meta-analysis with subgroup analysis of classification schemes and cultural values,” Addictive Behaviors, June, 2021.

“Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence,” Science, March 26, 2026.

“The Hacking of the American Mind, Penguin Random House, 2018.

“Substitute Addictions in Persons with Substance Use Disorders: A Scoping Review,” Substance Use and Misuse, March 21, 2021.

“The Unified Theory of Addiction,” Qeios, March 9, 2023.

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