Drugs Over Phones?
How scrolling on TikTok is like drugs
In present day, smartphone addictions have become extremely common. No matter where they are or when it is, people have developed the habit of checking their devices as frequently as possible.
Like many addictions in this world, phone addictions are harmful. From mental health issues to the deterioration of relationships, phone addictions resemble likes of a drug addiction. But is it comparable?
Well, yes. They are comparable. At first glance, a phone addiction may be incomparable to a drug addiction because well, one is a smartphone and the other is a chemical substance capable of causing fatal physiological damage and poses mental harms.
However, the continuous use of smartphones results in a developing addiction that requires acknowledgement, intervention, and detachment. If not, smartphones will continue to rewrite our brains and force us into dependency. Antoine Bechara, a psychology professor and neuroscientist at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, states that:
“The similarities between internet and cocaine addiction really lie in those brain systems that drive you toward the reward.”
Here, what Bechara is describing is the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for rewards and pleasure. When you swipe or scroll on your phone, the brain perceives it as a reward, therefore causing a dopamine hit in the brain every time. Julie Albright, a psychology lecturer at USC Dornsife, reveals and illustrates a relationship in how drugs and phones alter the brain.
“The affected area is the same ‘pleasure center’ activated by cocaine and other addictive drugs.”
However, neurological similarities aren’t the only shared characteristics. Some common consequences associated with smartphone addiction include a decrease in concentration, a decrease in performance across any activity, sleep disturbance which in turn impacts your mental health, blurred vision, stress, and depression, which are all shared consequences with drug addiction.
So yes, while there are some differences between drug addiction and phone addiction in the areas of the brain they affect or their extreme cases, the mental, social, and physiological alterations of a phone addiction are similar to that of a drug addiction. If that’s you, it’s time to stop reading and get some help.
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