ON THE UNINTENDED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF TECHNOLOGY: SOCIAL MEDIA AND ADDICTION

Pedro Urbano is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences , University of Coimbra. He’s fields of research are Philosophy of Science, Ethics and Evolutionary Psychology and he’s latest project is a book, “Five Essays on Evolutionary Psychology”. Professor Pedro Urbano has contributed much to the area of psychology mainly through teaching, orientation in master’s dissertation, scientific production, participation in events and participation in the Jury of Academic Degrees.

No one would dispute the fact that social media have become extremely important in our information age and probably no one would dispute the usefulness — and perceived usefulness — of social media and social media platforms. Even less, and for good reason, companies dispute such usefulness, in their merciless struggle to make large profits, as they use social media communication channels to influence the adoption of their products. Alas, the psychology that drives social media behavior is very worrisome. For example, addiction to smartphone usage is evolving from a simple concern, associated with an increase in car accident proneness, to a common worldwide problem: a multitude of studies that have been conducted or published in the last 5 years to evaluate the effects of smartphone use confirm the existence of direct relationships between smartphone use severity — or even smartphone addiction — and poor sleep quality, increased levels of anxiety and depression, as well as loneliness, notably in high school and university students. The same applies for most cases of generalized pathological internet use, including addiction to online video games and to other social aspects of the internet, which have often been associated with pre-existing psychosocial problems (depression, loneliness, or low levels of social support) that predispose for such behaviors. Which, in turn, they reinforce. And so on.

Social media being nowadays one of the most important common denominators of all of our electronic communication devices, and of smartphone use severity and generalized pathological internet use, we may ask:

“Why are the social media so addictive and, at the same time, so prejudicial to our wellbeing?”

“Why are the technologies associated to the social aspects of the internet producing results that are the opposite of what was intended?”

“Why does, paraphrasing, the “ding” announcing a new e-mail or the vibration that signals the arrival of a text message serves as a reward cue for us?”

Obviously, there is no simple answer to any of these questions. However, recent research on the putative role of dopamine in such an exceptionally problematic area is a promising sign for further progress. It is well known that dopamine (an organic chemical produced in various parts of the brain, functioning both as a hormone and a neurotransmitter) plays several very important roles in the brain. As a matter of fact, in popular culture, dopamine is often seen as a kind of “magic chemical” that controls the “pleasure” systems of the brain, causing one person to feel enjoyment or pleasure, and therefore motivating he or she to seek out certain behaviours, such as eating, having sex, or taking addictive drugs. Recent research, however, suggests that dopamine doesn’t exactly make us feel or experience pleasure (the opioid system does it), but may instead confer “motivational salience” — a cognitive process (and a form of attention) that motivates, or drives, a person’s behaviour towards (or away from) a particular object, perceived event, or outcome; including food (notably energy-rich foods), sex, physical exercise, social interactions, highly cooperative behaviors and even some kind of cognitive activities, such as being curious about things or ideas or searching for information. In other words, dopamine causes seeking behaviour, rewarding us (i.e., being pleasurable) for beneficial (in evolutionary terms) behaviors and traits — and motivating us to repeat them. That is, behaviors and traits that have been successfully and strongly selected in our evolutionary history as a species, as they keep us motivated to explore the world around us, to learn, to socialize, and, above all, to survive.

However, such cognitive process can be dysregulated, particularly in addiction: as with nicotine, cocaine, gambling, etc., the use of social media can become addictive and, simplifying a considerably complex matter, everything that is addictive is intrinsically rewarding and therefore function as a primary positive reinforcer of its own continued use. Put simply: some people become obsessed. To make things worse, the almost instant gratification allowed by the underlying technology makes it easy to get in a “compulsion loop.” Or, more specifically, in a dopamine induced loop: dopamine starts you seeking, which rewards you for the seeking, which makes you seek more. Whatever behavior preceded it, it may result in a release of dopamine, which reinforces that behavior. If that behavior concerns a positive social interaction, whether “real” or virtual, every notification, every “like,” every comment, has the potential serve as a reward cue — after all, social interactions are one of the defining features of our species, which evolved to be gregarious. No wonder the vast majority of people in many modern countries, particularly amongst younger generations, spending several hours per day tapping and typing on their smartphones, writing, commenting, sharing, posting, and… waiting for a reaction… thus repeatedly engaging in a compulsive behaviour, in order to gain a neurochemical reward such as the release of dopamine. No matter what these internet or social media companies want us to think, we cannot ignore the words of Chamath Palihapitiya, back in 2017, when he spoke out about his “tremendous guilt” over the growing of the most famous social networking site: it has eroded “the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”

References: Sherry Turkle; TURKLE — Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books, 2012.