Dangerously fun

I try to not play video games, watch videos, use psychoactive drugs, eat sugar, etc (for "etc" explored below), not just sith they're more fun than necessary, but sith they are, as I'd call it, dangerously fun. The "danger" in "dangerously fun" is a crude intuitive label for this category. It only weakly overlaps with the common meaning: cycling down a mountain is dangerous and fun, but not "dangerously fun", while listening to pop music (on its own) is "dangerously fun" but not dangerous.

I used the crude label sith I didn't grasp how the category was really defined. After several theories, I see what may unify these cautions. If you see counterexamples to disprove the theory, tell me.

An activity is dangerously fun iff it can addict the susceptible mind, so that it is pursued continuously, bounded only by the willpower to do something else, and the activity is not so extrinsically important as to justify such addiction. I have such a susceptible mind, which is why I strive to notice and avoid such things.

Strenuous physical exercise, in whatever form, is rarely dangerously fun: the activity easily stops from exhaustion. Communal (and, less reliably, partnered) activity is likewise safe: when others quit, you must too, and most people are less addictable (and so more ready to quit) than me.

Contrarily, much media, if fun, can be consumed in tremendous binges. A show of many already-out episodes is more dangerous than a similar movie, for the movie necessarily ends after a couple hours, while the show can be followed for much longer. Reading takes more cognitive effort, which makes it harder to continue and so easier to stop. But some writing is easy enough to read that that factor becomes trivial.

Programming, for those who enjoy it, can be dangerously fun. That depends on the practical import of the project, sith more extrinsically-important projects tend to be less fun, and sith productivity on something that matters can offset the harm of a binge.

Psychoactive drugs are dangerously fun based on how addictive they are and how large a typical supply is. One often acquires alcohol in many-"dose" bottles, or at a site where they can repeatedly get more, making it especially dangerous. Psychedelics are less addictive, and are more often bought remotely as one or a few doses, making them less dangerously fun than ethanol.

I did and do disapprove of sexual activity. It's generally considered fun, so I conflated sex as another example of dangerously fun activity. That another person must participate and (ideally) can stop it suggests it's not dangerously fun, and my real objection must lie elsewhere. Masturbation, however, is dangerously fun.

Sandbox video games, scrollable short video, and undirected talk with LLMs are some of the newest and most extreme forms of dangerous fun. They're appealing enough that you'd likely want to continue. Their only requirements are the electricity and internet service — usually given 24/7 — and your own finite willpower.