I don&#x27;t like seeing the language of addiction and recovery expanded to new areas like this. It&#x27;s a way of putting moral frame on behavior that can be healthy and enriching.<p>I first felt this way when I saw &quot;addiction&quot; applied as a label to kids who prefered playing video games to going outside. My response was &quot;did they call it addiction before video games when kids played with blocks and action figures indoors?&quot; They didn&#x27;t. It&#x27;s easy for people to reach for the term &quot;addiction&quot; when they want to pathologize behavior they don&#x27;t like.<p>Fact is, the dopamine cycle is a natural part of life. The problem isn&#x27;t whether something is addictive or not, it&#x27;s whether the side effects of that pleasure cycle are harmful.  I&#x27;ve had periods in my life where I&#x27;ve spent weeks and months at a time &quot;heads down&quot; in programming. It was always as controllable as it was pleasurable.