Play mobile phones, brush short videos, and disappear overnight; play games, round after round, two or three hours are not tired. However, after reading a book for half an hour, I began to be irritable and bored, and I worked for two hours to get by like a year.
People are so addicted to playing games and playing mobile phones, but they feel that some "serious things" are boring, and this is where dopamine works.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that controls people's pleasure. When anything brings irritation, the brain secretes dopamine, making people feel happy. Why does recreational pastimes activate more dopamine than more productive work-study? Playing mobile games makes people less interested in other things, if we don't rely on electronic screens, how can we get back some simple happiness?
The phone brushes non-stop looking forward to new stimuli
Keep opening WeChat to see if anyone has sent messages to themselves, repeatedly refresh the home page of Weibo, want to see if there is any interesting content to present, social stimuli from the network continue to seduce people's brains, and every comment like and message is rewarding social feedback.
There are many studies that have found that these social stimuli can activate the dopamine system in the mammalian brain like food or even drugs[2], and what really makes online social media so attractive is the uncertainty of this reward.
Million Big V is you? ｜giphy
Many things in life that make people feel happy are because they are uncertain. For example, playing a game, not sure whether the result is to win or lose; such as falling in love, each step of approach is accompanied by speculation and risk of the other party's intentions. When the reward for a behavior is uncertain, it is called the "reward prediction bias", forming an addiction mechanism.
In a study on "reward prediction bias" [6], researchers found that monkeys were activated by their dopamine neurons when they received food rewards, and that when monkeys were trained to predict food through audiovisual cues, their dopamine neurons were also activated. However, when food is given after the clue appears, the dopamine neuron is no longer activated; if the clue appears and there is no food, the activation level of the dopamine neuron decreases.
Therefore, when the individual can predict that a certain pleasure is about to occur, he already feels happiness, but if the corresponding pleasure does not appear, there will be negative feelings.
Back in life, when people frequently check the mobile phone social APP, they are also predicting the emergence of their own social feedback, and whenever they open WeChat with expectations, or send something, dopamine levels will rise, because it means that they are likely to receive feedback from others, that is, rewarding social stimulation. However, after each opening of the phone to check, if there is no response, it will feel lost, so the brain needs to seek dopamine again, driving the individual to repeatedly want to open the phone, forming a dopamine cycle [3]. The whole cycle is like gambling, gambling wins and still wants to win, gambling loses unconvinced.
Keep looping hoping to get new stimuli, the sky is bright| giphy
The mobile phone is so addictive, on the one hand, the pleasure that social networking itself can bring, and on the other hand, its uncertainty makes people want to keep refreshing. Compared with reading books and learning these step-by-step activities that can not stop giving stimulation, playing mobile phones is indeed more favored by the dopamine system.
"Serious things" are too boring? It is the dopamine receptor that becomes sluggish
When I was a child, I could feel a strong sense of happiness when I played a game of backgammon with my classmates between classes. But now there are a variety of games on the phone, sometimes bored or bored to continue to play, not to mention the dull things such as work and study. Don't people grow up to be insensitive to subtle pleasures?
Insensitivity to pleasure may not be because of "growing up," but because the brain has been stuck at high dopamine levels for a long time, and dopamine receptors have become sluggish.
To make the brain feel happy, in addition to the dopamine itself, there is also the credit of the dopamine receptor, which can only bring happiness when the extracellular dopamine binds to the dopamine receptor. If the brain is exposed to high levels of dopamine for a long time, dopamine receptors are likely to become passive and sluggish [7].
The most typical is the effect of drugs. Current research has found that drugs are mostly euphoric because they raise extracellular dopamine levels, while addicts suck more and more because long-term high dopamine makes receptors more tolerant. When dopamine receptors become sluggisher and produce the same pleasure they need more dopamine, which is simply dopamine's "inflation."
Social media is a set of addictive mechanisms that can easily get people caught up in it| she said
So those who are deeply involved in high dopamine activities, such as drug addicts, alcoholics, and overeating people, often have difficulty getting ordinary happiness from life. Once they do not engage in these high-dopamine activities, they cannot even tolerate daily life, and in order to alleviate the pain, they have to engage in high-dopamine activities again, and the cycle repeats.
In internet addicts, functional deficiencies in dopamine receptors also exist. An Israeli study found that when healthy people finished playing video games, their brain dopamine receptor use decreased by 10.5%, meaning that online games reduced dopamine receptor sensitivity and reduced the pleasure brought about by the same stimuli. Another study also found that [12] internet addicts have fewer dopamine receptors in their brain striatum than normal people. So in a way, the harm of Internet addiction to the brain is similar to that of drug addiction and alcoholism.
Silicon Valley company Dopamine Labs claims to use neuroscience theory combined with artificial intelligence machine learning to "make your app addictive with dopamine" |boundless.ai
Whether it is alcohol, drugs, overeating or mobile phone network stimulation, the large amount of dopamine brought by these supernatural levels of happiness makes people's dopamine receptors no longer sensitive, making people want to fill, no longer able to feel the simple happiness of life, and even after not getting stimulation, they are impatient and nervous, is there any way to restore dopamine to its normal state?
Why not try "dopamine withdrawal"
"Dopamine withdrawal" was developed by American psychiatrist Cameron Sepa (Dr. Cameron Sepah) came up with the concept, but it wasn't about blocking the production of dopamine, but about regulating the function of dopamine receptors. It is based on cognitive behavioral therapy, which reduces the brain's need for dopamine by reducing compulsive pleasure behaviors, such as using the Internet, shopping, sexual behavior, eating junk food, etc., thereby resetting the sensitivity of dopamine receptors, reducing their tolerance, and getting rid of addiction.
To carry out "dopamine withdrawal", you first need to list the entertainment behaviors that make you addicted, such as playing games, brushing mobile phones, overeating, etc., and arrange these behaviors according to the degree of distress, and completely kick the most troublesome behaviors out of your life, of course, this requires strong determination. For those activities that do not cause much trouble, strict management is carried out, such as the length of the day.
Annoying and want to see the app should be deleted | giphy
Then, you can magnify the proportion of real life and find a source of happiness that does not rely on electronic screens. Put down your phone, go to really meet your friends, go play ball, and make yourself a "cash", which also diverts the pain of quitting unhealthy entertainment. When arranging activities, it is also best to spend the whole time, such as spending 1 hour reading a book without moving, and not doing anything else in the middle.
In addition to "dopamine withdrawal", there are other ways to restore the function of dopamine receptors. For example, sun exposure is a good approach, and studies have found that people who have been exposed to the sun longer have higher striatum dopamine receptor activity [13]. Exercise is also an effective approach, with studies finding that decreased dopamine receptor function makes people less likely to exercise[15], and increasing exercise has the potential to re-energize dopamine receptors [14].
Exercise well and let the dopamine pathways support | giphy
"Dopamine withdrawal" is by no means "avoiding all activities that make you happy." While we need to be wary of the addiction caused by dopamine tolerance, we must not overly forcibly inhibit the production of dopamine, as long-term low dopamine levels can make people sick.
Judson Brewer, a neuroscientist who studies addiction, argues that "forced withdrawal" can be difficult to stick to, and if you feel like you're forcing yourself away from something you love, you'll be back in front of the electronic screen again and again. A better approach is to fully realize that something that secretes dopamine in your brain isn't really a "reward" and that surfing social networks all day will only make you feel tired and bad.
Really observe your feelings, record them, and when your brain is less hungry for false rewards, you may be able to experience all kinds of happiness - playing with your phone is also happy, reading is also happy, going out is also happy, that may be a richer life experience.
bibliography
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[17] After drinking bulletproof coffee, to set up dopamine withdrawal, Silicon Valley bigwigs renew IQ? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/IZO5JRYhiAJWutqdQECf5w
Author: This wood
Editor: Small towel, you zhiyou
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