Just like a pill

Will Baude defends book addiction. At least at Chicago, if not in some larger segments of the world, a person who reads books all the time is considered admirable, even if all that is gained by this reading is that the reader is entertained. Even if the same can be gained by another person through watching movies, eating rice cakes, or gossipping. And a person who exercises all the time might well end up looking like this:

Which is really a net gain for the world, when you think of it.

But...lost the thought...oh yes, talking about how "horrible" it is that you read too much, work out too much, study too much, win too many Nobel Prizes, etc., isn't going to elicit much sympathy. That's because, while as Baude points out, his relationship to books sure looks like an addiction, it just, well, isn't.

An activity should only be called an addiction if a person feels some degree of shame in admitting to it. An 8th grader proud of his pot "habit" is not an addict; a 40-year-old toking up in secret every day might be. That way, addiction can be defined as somewhere between "something a person enjoys doing frequently" and "substance abuse." Somehow I doubt this redefinition will catch on, though.