Dopamine Doom Loop

Reading time: 5 Minutes

By now, the truth is well-known but conveniently brushed under the carpet or deceptively diluted. This truth is the utterly devastating effects on the human brain of ‘dopamine hits’, and instant gratification provided by pleasure inducing rapid-fire bursts. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which regulates the brain’s reward system. If you experience pleasure, dopamine is released, but when dopamine is released through the mechanism of soundbites and social media likes, the brain becomes transfixed, dependent and unbalanced.

Analysts at Bernstein Research likened TikTok to ‘digital crack’,[1] and further research indicates that short, gratifying content has the same effect on the brain as some of history’s most addictive substances.

Not all dopamine release is bad of course, since not all pleasure is bad, but the neurotransmitter must be released in a balanced way. Flooding the brain with ‘cheap thrills’ robs the consumer of focus, long-term aspiration, and ability to live the life of productivity like those who have gone before us. Such a crisis has led author Anna Lembke to scribe the Dopamine Workbook[2], a guide which helps find a route through the current age of indulgence.

There is something insidious about it all, when you consider that previous addiction avenues were more obvious, and able to be directly confronted. Whereas crack-cocaine was rampant, the war on drugs eventually curtailed the out-of-control epidemic. Likewise, schemes such as Alcoholics Anonymous and dietary instructors can be utilised to make in-roads toward tackling compulsive behaviour. The dopamine wave, though, appears to be so seeped into society and masqueraded as something good or beneficial, at most neutral. At current rate, there seems to be no institutional way of stopping it.

Here-in lies the challenge, how do you effectively rail against a system which is profitable and manipulative, yet considered broadly acceptable? From a human perspective, the answer is clear. It is a heart and mind which has a vision of something greater…

[1] TikTok Compared to Crack Cocaine by Top Wall Street Internet Analysts - Business Insider

[2] The Official Dopamine Nation Workbook by Anna Lembke | Hachette UK