By James Lewis, SciTech Deputy Editor
In the last 20 years, mental health has become a central aspect in our society’s attitudes to personal wellbeing. At the same time, the rise of the internet and social media have helped to create one of the most fraught mental states of any generation.
Every day, we trick our brain into mistaking the unreal for the real. Our brain triggers responses that aren’t suitable for the dopamine cycles induced by late night doom-scrolling – but what’s just one more video?
Rewind 500 years – all the information our relatives could know was what was happening immediately around them. As the book became the kindle, and passwords became fingerprints, our brains have remained the same, barely capable of delineating the virtual from the real. Protests, elections, and that pop star’s latest chemically induced breakdown are fired into the palms of our hands at every minute of every day. Our brain’s treat them as if they are as real as that car hurtling straight towards you. Your breathing and heart rate rise, glucose is pumped throughout your body; these involuntary responses are your fight-or-flight response. Not quite so useful when you’re heading to bed.
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This constant bombardment of stimuli has been studied to have similar effects on the brain as drugs and alcohol do. Addiction to our phones is very real; that notification coming from your phone triggers a dopamine response, a sudden burst of excitement that easily distracts us from what is happening in our immediate surroundings. Just the thing our brains crave. Intermittent reinforcement easily takes hold of our brain. The tactile notification is immediately followed by a text from a loved one, a 10 second TikTok, or a picture of your dog. These cause small releases of dopamine, a hormone that is responsible for sensations of pleasurable reward, and our brains quickly become addicted; the connection in your brain associates a notification with a pleasurable reward.
Addiction to our phones is very real
Fight-or-flight is the reason we have prospered for so long - a big lion on the horizon? I'd better get out of here. Or so our relatives thought. The reflex induces our body to a state of preparedness, ready to defend yourself and your tribe. However, today this response is being repeatedly and unnecessarily triggered by technology. Buzzing and ringing, our brains are on permanent high alert, perceptive to the relentless bombardment of the internet’s short attention span.
But, as all good things are, this constant high from dopamine has its inevitable lows. A buzz or a ring is interpreted by our brains as something that demands immediate attention, that needs to be looked at. This phenomenon is caused by the dopamine cycle; the brain demands to know what’s on the other side of those pixels, because it has been repeatedly conditioned to expect a quick break from the mundane real life. As our brain craves to know what’s happened, by being constantly reminded of the excitement that lies in our phones, cortisol is released from the adrenal glands. This hormone is most readily associated with stress. It keeps the body in an extended period of preparedness and too much of it has links to a variety of mental health problems, including depression and anxiety.
Like an addiction to anything else, a detox can help to reset our relationship with social media
It might sometimes feel that we are helpless to do anything about this. No matter how hard we try, we cannot escape our phones. A blessing and a curse, they keep us connected in this world. Sadly, these companies that we have bestowed great power onto have repeatedly prioritised company profits over the well being of their users. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have been explicitly designed and refined to maximise how addictive they are. Bright colours, easily digestible content, and algorithms that anticipate what we want before we know it ourselves have kept us glued to the screen.
These platforms trigger the same reward centres associated with drug and alcohol use. Our society needs to change its attitude to this new addiction and understand that it works in ways we have seen before. Like an addiction to anything else, a detox can help to reset our relationship with social media and return our dopamine to normal levels. Swapping the phone for a book, or TikTok for a film, are easy ways to protect our fragile brains from getting sucked into destructive habits. This will encourage the body to calm down and not instinctively react when our phones chime from our pockets.
Featured image: Corin Hadley/Procreate