The Silent Pandemic: Dopamine Addiction and Why It’s Ruining a Generation

“The first step in dealing with an addiction is admitting you have one.”

I’m certain that, at some point in your life, you’ve heard that saying. If you’re anything like me, you will usually relate that saying to alcohol, drugs, smoking… activities that we view as inherently bad. Alcohol addiction causes liver failure, smoking gives us lung cancer and drugs send us into financial ruin. What we rarely relate that phrase too is modern addictions, in particular, the addiction to dopamine.

If you’re unaware, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that our body creates. Specifically, it is created to cause us to feel pleasure; social media, gaming, sex, laughter — all of these activities cause the body to release dopamine. At face value, dopamine is important, that is fact and it is undeniable. We are programmed biologically to create and use dopamine to feel a certain way. I am not going to dispute this.

The Culture of Dopamine Consumption

There is, however, a stark reality that we must become aware of. The modern era of humankind is addicted to dopamine. A chemical reaction that is traditionally harder to come by is now available to us 24/7. Simply glancing at your phone, logging onto your Xbox or taking a look at the number of likes the picture of your cat got, it is all dopamine inducing. This of course begs the question — if I can constantly feel pleasure through dopamine, why wouldn’t I spend my life doing these activities?

The reason is simple — where there is infinite upside (e.g. unlimited dopamine), there is also infinite downside. The social media world we live in today has as much potential to cause depression as it does to cause pleasure. How many times have you been pissed off at a game because you failed the level? How many times have you felt sadness because your photo didn’t get as many likes as the last? The reality is this — the never ending search for our next hit of dopamine is causing a pandemic of depression.

There is no denying that this is a scary concept. The entirety of humankind is stuck in this perpetual loop, with more and more dopamine being made available by the second. Entire industries are setup around this fact — social media giants, porn, gaming. So what is the way out? How do we break the cycle and free ourselves?

The Cure

The answer to this question already exists. We simply look to the solutions for other addictions and pandemics. Ask yourself this — if you’re unhappy with your weight, what do you do? You go on a diet. If you want to stop drinking, what do you do? You throw away all the alcoholic drinks in your home. The same way we enforce a balanced diet, we need to enforce balanced consumption of pleasure. In a world where pleasure is available at your finger tips, the only limitation is self-discipline. It is time for us to take control of our own intake.

To avoid being hypocritical, I’m going to aim to reduce my own consumption and set myself boundaries. Overtime, I will tweak them as I see fit. Remember, the aim is not too eliminate pleasure, simply to control it. Feel free to follow these or set your own. Together, we can make the change.

Limitations

• 30 minutes of social media (per day)

• 60 minutes of gaming (per day)