Tech’s Attack on Our Dopamine System

Tech companies hire highly-intelligent people to help them design the best product for their features. brain’s reward systems.

Their goal is to create addictive and habitual behavior. This is known as reward prediction error (RPE) encoding It features a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

In 2018, interviewChamath Palihapitiya was the former Vice President of Facebook for User Growth. dopamine He regrettably contributed to the development of feedback loops for the social media platform.  “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. Social media companies are exploiting the psychology of people for making a profit,” Palihapitiya said.

What are Dopamine Feedback Loops and How Do They Work?

Dopamine feedback loops work in a similar way to what casino owners use for their slot machines. If you’ve ever played slots, you’ve experienced the rush of anticipation while the wheel spins. Between the lever pull and the result, the dopaminergic neurons of the midbrain have time to increase their activity. This creates a rewarding charge with every pull.

Social media companies have also created an identical action, anticipation, reward loop. Scrolling, writing and commenting are the actions. Anticipation: Searching for new content, or waiting to see a comment or like. The best part? reward Receiving one of the former.

If you’ve ever posted on a social media site or other apps just for the sake of getting likes or comments or have opened an app to look at the first post then swipe to see what comes next, and before you knew it 15 minutes had gone by, then you’ve experienced a dopamine feedback loop.

Dopamine Feedback Loops: Dangers

Your neurons will release an excessive amount of dopamine to your system, causing you to feel good at first. Problem is, when this happens, your brains will compensate by trying to find equilibrium by pushing our levels of dopamine below baseline. This can cause us to experience a dopamine deficiency state.

A dopamine deficit can cause anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. These artificial dopamine-driven feedback loops can mimic how addicts to drugs get addicted and can lead to individuals becoming trapped in a vicious cycle of lows and highs.

Smartphones can serve as a digital hypodermic needle or an asset that helps to deliver digital dopamine 24 hours a day to chemically imbalanced people. The reality is, in the age of technology it’s almost impossible to go about life and not use a smartphone or computer. For many—especially young people—social media is a preoccupation and compulsive form of entertainment. While technology is necessary, it is equally important to recognize, minimize, and minimize its negative effects on our brains and bodies. So, how can we regain control of our lives and restore balance?

How to recognize when you have a problem

“You might be able to tell you’re in a dopamine deficit state when you’re scrolling through social media, and you feel like you can’t stop,” Dr. Anna Lembke wrote in her book “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.”

“It doesn’t necessarily feel good, and you aren’t getting anything from your actions, but you just keep scrolling. When we’re in a dopamine deficit, it can feel similar to depression and anxiety,” She writes.

Other signs Of technology addiction These can be:

• Technology or internet activities can make it harder to sleep
• Obsessively reviewing text messages and notifications
• Losing interest in aspects of your life that don’t involve the internet  or technology
• Online time can make us feel guilty or defensive.
• To improve your mood or to experience pleasure, relief or sexual gratification, you can turn to the internet and a technology-enabled gadget.
• It is difficult to reduce your internet use or technology usage.

Dopamine Deficiency Symptoms

A blood test can measure dopamine levels but can’t determine how your brain responds to dopamine. Doctors rely on symptoms and not just testing. Some of these symptoms are: symptoms are:

• You’re depressedYou feel hopeless.
• You’re moody or anxious.
• You don’t feel pleasure from previously enjoyable experiences.
• You can’t concentrate.
• Are you having trouble sleeping?
• You have a low level of sex drive.
• You’re tired.
• You lack motivation and drive.
• You have gastrointestinal symptoms, including chronic constipation.

So what are we to do and how can technology be countered?

Rebalancing our Dopamine

If we feel we’ve lost control of our impulses and find ourselves experiencing addiction and low dopamine levels, it’s important to first break the cycle.

Start with a dopamine fast: Take a 30-day rest. You can cut out addictive behaviors completely and then gradually reintroduce them in moderation. This will bring your pleasure-pain balance under control.

All phone notifications should be turned off Every notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” Instagram notifications or posts on Facebook have the potential to create a positive social stimulus that can lead to dopamine influx and a positive social stimulus.

You can change the grayscale of your phone’s screen: Some colors draw our attention.  Findings show the colors green and blue are on top of the list of all colors for enhancing the concentration of dopamine. (Notice the blue themes of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook)

Make a counter-movement: This is a movement that you make that causes your body to respond in a conditioned way. For example when you realize you’re endlessly scrolling in a dopamine loop, immediately press the home button and place the phone face-side down. A counter-movement becomes a conditioned response you can use to break the dopamine-seeking-reward loop once it has started.

A Dopamine Diet

When we’re trying to get our dopamine back, some foods and lifestyle choices can help us naturally increase dopamine levels.

Eat! “real food” diet that’s high in magnesium Tyrosine and dopamine. These are the building blocks for dopamine synthesis. Tyrosine It is an amino acid which is converted to dopamine when it is eaten. Avoid processed sugar. Sugar It is an anti-nutrient which affects and disrupts all neuronal pathways.

Foods known for their health increase dopamine Include chicken, almonds, apples, avocados, bananas, beets. chocolate. green teaLima beans, oatmeal and oranges as well as peas. sesame as well as tomatoes, pumpkin seeds and watermelon.

Fermented foods They are rich in probiotics. A healthy balance in beneficial microbiota is vital for brain health. It can also affect mood.

Dopamine-Increasing Activities

Cold showers Cold showers Increased dopamine levels have been demonstrated.

Exercise: Exercise This increases brain cell production and increases levels dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine.

Sunlight: Sunlight Increases the number of dopamine-receptors. The synthesis of UV rays to vitamin D activates dopamine-releasing genes.

Sleep: Sleep begets dopamine sensitivity. A lack of it is also a problem. sleep Reduces the number dopamine receptors. Dopamine can also control the production and release melatonin, which is a sleep hormone.

Gut Health Your intestinal flora health directly impacts The production of neurotransmitters. A high level of bad bacteria can lead to toxic byproducts, which can damage brain cells that are responsible for the production of dopamine.

Yoga, MeditationAnd Music: These activities lower cortisol levels and increase dopamine production.

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