Tech & The Dopamine Effect

So, I’m reading this book called The Cyber Effect (by Mary Aiken, published by Spiegel & Grau, 2016) which is part of my impetus to do a tech diet.  I routinely see teens in my office whose use of tech, particularly video games, is way out of control.  The cumulative amounts of time that teens and young adults spend on the internet and in video gaming are staggering: tens of thousands of hours by the time they reach 18.  Tech is far more influential than parents, teachers, coaches or pastors in the majority of children’s lives.  In my practice I’m seeing a dramatic increase in problems related to weak identity formation. It shows up in late adolescence and early adulthood. Such problems cannot be distilled to simplistic cause and effect relationships.  It would be unwise to simply say the internet or Tech is bad for us. 

In the Cyber Effect Mary Aiken makes the case that we are involved in a massive social experiment with the rise of tech gadgets, gaming, and the internet.  In the crosshairs is our own psychological and neurological development.  By any measure humanity is more connected with communication than in history, but we are also witnessing an increase in loneliness and isolation. We’re trading our true relational connections for illusory, virtual ones.  Our devices give our brains the sense we are engaged and involved when the opposite is true.

An interesting (and not even main) idea in the Cyber Effect,  is that the searching, scanning, flipping and clicking behavior on our devices, particularly our cell phones stimulates a release of dopamine in our brains. This subtly reinforces behaviors so we repeat them and our brains feel stimulated. The more we use our devices the more our brains become habituated and potentially addicted to this higher state of arousal.  Our brain normalizes this stimulated state and expects it as it’s normal state.  We become less satisfied with calmer states of mind that occur with normal conversation and socialization. In short the dopamine effect reinforces us to constantly reach for our phones with the slightest moment of non-stimulation.  I experience this particularly when waiting for something – like the line at the grocery store. But thousands are feeling this effect while driving - which is a fairly automatic and mindless (though it shouldn’t be) activity.  Everyone knows it’s dangerous to text and drive – except our dopamine saturated brains that can’t help checking Facebook one more time.

On my Tech Diet I have observed myself many times starting to mindlessly reach for my phone when I have a thought or question that pops in my head.  My brain has begun to treat my phone as a kind of extension of thought; a source of instantly closing cognitive loops and questions.    When I started to set up the “rules” of no internet searching, no mindless use of tech, this dopamine stimulation began to subside. The over-stimulation calmed way down, and it became much easier and pleasurable to attend to less dopamine stimulating but entirely normal and satisfying conversations and interactions.  I’m weaning myself off the impulse to grab my phone when my brain is craving dopamine – and the affect is very liberating for me and the friends and family around me. I’m less tech connected, and more people connected.

BTW:  My iPhone Screen Stats this past Sunday said my iPhone use was down 82%.  Wow.  And that’ just in half a week’s time.  Coming up:  Behavioral sequences and why putting away your smart phone at dinner might not work.