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Here’s a situation most of us can relate to: We find ourselves facing a dull moment—maybe standing in a checkout line, sitting in a waiting room, or even stuck at a red light—and our hands suddenly feel empty. Like they have a mind of their own, they reach for our pockets and place a screen in front of our faces. Never mind the eyestrain, the neck pain, or the voice in our heads yelling at us to do something, anything, else. Before we know it, we’re tapping, swiping, and scrolling our attention away.
Addictive cravings have become an everyday part of our relationship with technology. At the same time, comparing these urges to drug addictions can seem like hyperbole. Addictive drugs, after all, are chemical substances that need to physically enter your body to get you hooked—but you can’t exactly inject an iPhone. So how similar could they be?
More than you might think. From a neuroscientific perspective, it’s not unreasonable to draw parallels between addictive tech and cocaine. That’s not to say that compulsively checking your phone is as harmful as a substance use disorder, but the underlying neural circuitry is essentially the same, and in both situations, the catalyst is—you guessed it—dopamine.
So, how exactly does cocaine leverage dopamine to hook you, and what does addictive tech do to mimic that habit-forming potential? Let’s take a look between your ears.
The human brain is divided into a number of different regions. You can think of these like departments in a company; they each take on particular sets of tasks and even have interdepartmental mail in the form of specialized chemicals called neurotransmitters. Dopamine, famous and largely misunderstood, is one such chemical. It’s used to transmit a variety of different signals in the brain (most neurotransmitters do) but what it’s best known for is the role it plays in reward processing.
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Illustration: Vicky Leta
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James' World 2 
Jun 14, 2023 @ 11:42:05
Our brain directs all our activity. There is a pituitary gland which controls most of the activities! 👏well shared
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Jun 14, 2023 @ 11:49:39
Thanks for your comment!
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