“Easy Earned Dopamine: Reason for our Addiction”
why do we become addicted to cell phones?
Dopamine is often referred to as the ‘feel-good hormone’ in everyday language.
It means that when dopamine is released in our bodies, we feel happy, excited, contented, jubilant, and much more. However, if the levels of dopamine decrease, we may become depressed, lethargic, or irritated, and it could even lead to depression and mental health issues in a person.
Dopamine is our brain’s way of rewarding us when we achieve something significant in our lives. If I have accomplished a difficult task, such as solving a complex mathematics problem or composing a musical note, or writing a good poem, my brain will reward me by secreting dopamine. This provides me with a lot of pleasure and encourages me to work hard on my other endeavors.
It is due to dopamine that we see dedicated individuals in their fields. Great scientists, music composers, mathematicians, and programmers do not have a sense of time when they are engrossed in their passion. The chemical reason for their nerdy behavior or passionate engagement is this ‘feel-good’ hormone.
Getting our brain to release dopamine is a challenging task; a person must put all their efforts into achieving this feat. The more challenging the problem, the sweeter the fruit of success. This has been the case until now.
However, things are changing in the modern world.
We are now involved in activities that stimulate the release of dopamine every second. This has become a kind of addiction. If you’ve encountered a shopaholic person, you’ll notice they like to buy everything because the act of visiting a mall and shopping provides them with a burst of dopamine. Since they are addicted to this hormone, they become depressed if they are not shopping.
A similar effect is seen in people who are avid users of social media. The algorithms of these social media sites like TikTok, Facebook, or even YouTube are designed so that if you engage in a particular activity, they provide more and more of such content. When you are engrossed in these activities, you experience a burst of dopamine released in your body, which keeps you happy.
This dopamine, which should be released at the end of an endeavor, is released without any effort, thus making you addicted.
So, in the absence of this easily earned reward, we become depressed, lonely, and irritated. We are unable to go even a few hours without our cell phones. The culprit is the easy doses of dopamine released in our brains when we scroll through our screens.
The absence of it can make one appear like a psychopath.”
