We're Three Drinks Away From Digital Prohibition

Remember that friend who checks their phone mid-conversation? The one who can't sit through dinner without scrolling Instagram? Yeah, that's all of us now. And here's the kicker: we're living through the exact same cultural moment that led to America banning alcohol entirely. The parallels are so obvious they're painful.

Morning shots and midnight scrolls

In 1900, the average American adult consumed 13 standard drinks per week. People started their mornings with wine and sugar, took "bitters" at 11 AM instead of coffee breaks, and kept drinking through dinner. Factory workers could grab drinks before, during, and after their shifts. The term "Blue Monday" existed because so many workers showed up hungover that Mondays were basically written off as unproductive.

Sound familiar? Today, 80% of Americans check their phones within 10 minutes of waking up. We average 205 phone checks daily – once every five minutes while awake. 43% of us admit we're addicted. We check phones in the bathroom (65%), during dates (38%), and while driving (27%). Hell, over half of us would rather text someone in the same room than talk face-to-face.

The normalization is complete. Just as a Georgian in the 1800s could say "If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffeners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?" – we now think it's perfectly normal to check Instagram during breakfast, scroll Twitter on the toilet, and fall asleep watching TikToks.

Saloons were the original social networks

Here's where it gets truly eerie. In 1900 Chicago, saloons weren't just bars – they were the social infrastructure. There was one saloon for every 150-200 Americans. They provided free lunches, newspapers, meeting rooms, and even employment services. They called themselves things like "Mechanics' Exchange" or "Democratic Headquarters." One Chicago saloon had 3,000 people pass through on a Saturday night for vaudeville shows.

Saloons were where you went to find work, meet friends, get news, and feel connected to your community. They were so essential that even the public toilets were mostly in saloons. Sound like any platforms you know?

Social media has become our digital saloon system. It's where we network professionally (LinkedIn), get our news (Twitter), maintain friendships (Facebook), and find entertainment (TikTok). Just as saloons provided the only toilets in many neighborhoods, social media platforms have become the only way to access certain communities, support groups, and professional networks.

Nobody thinks they have a problem

The most damning parallel? In pre-Prohibition America, there was no concept of alcoholism. Drinking too much was seen as a "simple lack of will." If you suggested someone had a drinking problem when everyone drank at every meal, you'd be the weird one. Alcohol was considered medicine, safer than water, and essential for social life.

Today, suggest someone might want to cut back on social media and watch the defensiveness kick in. "I need it for work!" "How else would I keep up with friends?" "It's how I get my news!" We've created entire professional categories that "require" constant connectivity. 84% of companies now have bring-your-own-device policies, expecting employees to use personal phones for work.

Studies show social media triggers the same dopamine responses as cocaine. Users experience genuine withdrawal symptoms – anxiety, restlessness, irritability – when they can't access their feeds. When researchers tried to study social media abstinence, only 15% of people invited were willing to participate. Nearly 60% of those who did try to quit for seven days relapsed.

The overcorrection is already starting

Here's where history starts rhyming hard. When American society finally acknowledged alcohol's harms, we didn't develop sensible drinking guidelines or strengthen social norms around moderation. We went full prohibitionist nuclear.

The same shit is happening with social media. Australia just passed the world's first under-16 social media ban with $33 million fines for non-compliance. The UK's Online Safety Act now requires government ID and live selfies to access certain content. Reddit users in Britain need to verify their identity to visit LGBTQ+ support forums. Nineteen US states have passed age verification laws.

The proposals get more extreme by the day: biometric verification, "Know Your Customer" requirements like banks use, behavioral analysis AI to guess users' ages. We're watching the regulatory panic spiral in real-time, and public support is overwhelming – 77% of Australians back the under-16 ban.

Why extreme solutions always fail

Prohibition didn't reduce drinking – it just made it more dangerous. Toxic moonshine killed 1,000 Americans annually. Organized crime exploded. Al Capone made $100 million a year ($1.4 billion today). The government literally poisoned industrial alcohol to discourage drinking, directly causing deaths. Violence soared, corruption became endemic, and respect for law enforcement collapsed.

The parallels to social media bans are obvious. Kids will use VPNs. They'll gravitate to less regulated, more dangerous platforms. Identity verification systems will create massive privacy vulnerabilities. The UK's ham-fisted implementation already has people submitting government IDs to access basic support communities.

These extreme "solutions" fail because they ignore fundamental realities. Demand doesn't disappear when you ban supply. People find workarounds. Black markets emerge. The "cure" becomes worse than the disease.

The sensible middle path we'll ignore

Between 1900's "drink at every meal" culture and 1920's total prohibition, there was space for sensible reform: workplace sobriety standards, social norms around appropriate drinking, better support for problem drinkers. Instead, we went from one extreme to another.

We're making the same mistake with social media. Between today's "205 phone checks daily" culture and Australia's "nobody under 16 allowed" ban, there's room for reasonable solutions: algorithmic transparency, duty-of-care requirements, digital literacy education, better parental controls. But that's not sexy enough for politicians who need to "do something" dramatic.

Three years until the dam breaks

Prohibition came fast once momentum built. The Anti-Saloon League went from founding to constitutional amendment in just 26 years. States started passing their own prohibition laws, creating a patchwork of restrictions that eventually forced federal action. By 1916, 23 states had gone dry before national Prohibition even started.

We're watching the same acceleration now. What started with concerns about teen mental health has morphed into wholesale platform bans. Australia leads, but France's president threatens similar restrictions. Norway, Ireland, and the Netherlands are considering their own bans. The US has a chaotic state-by-state approach that's begging for federal intervention.

My prediction? Within three years, we'll see a major Western democracy attempt something approaching digital prohibition – mandatory age verification for all users, severe content restrictions, or platform shutdowns. It'll be a disaster, create worse problems than it solves, and we'll spend a decade undoing the damage.

The hangover nobody wants to prevent

The saddest part is we can see this coming and we're powerless to stop it. The public wants dramatic action. Politicians need wins. Tech companies have burned through their credibility. Civil liberties groups are dismissed as industry shills.

Just as the saloon became a symbol of everything wrong with American society – immigration, political corruption, domestic violence, poverty – social media has become our universal scapegoat. Teen depression? Social media. Political polarization? Social media. Your kid won't talk to you at dinner? Definitely social media.

The real solution isn't sexy: developing healthier norms around technology use, teaching digital literacy, creating better tools for managing our consumption. But that requires admitting we all have a problem, and we're still in the "I can quit whenever I want" phase of cultural addiction.

So buckle up. We're about to ban our way to a solution, and it's going to be just as stupid as pouring perfectly good beer down storm drains while Al Capone gets rich next door. History doesn't repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes – and this time it's got a notification sound.