Dopamine - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I watched an interview recently, of Simon Sinek, the author and inspirational speaker, about the impact of Social media on millennials’ behaviour. He attributes “Dopamine” as one of the main reasons that plays a scientific role in our addiction to Social media apps. This led to me scouring the internet about dopamine and its impact on our social media addiction.

 As per WebMD, Dopamine is a chemical, type of a neurotransmitter and our nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. It plays an important role in motivating behaviour in addition to various other metabolism in our body. Lack of it or an excess of it, could lead to medical issues as per Medical journals.

 But more important to my area of interest, was better explained in an article – Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A battle for your time by Trevor Haynes – a research technician in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dopamine influences mental health, as all pleasurable experiences like a good meal, exercise, alcohol, cocaine, sex, gambling etc. releases dopamine. The release of dopamine reinforces the preceding human behaviour with feel-good factor and motivates us to repeat them. This also explains how excessive release of dopamine especially in use of cocaine, heroin could result in addiction.

 Mr. Haynes explains a feature of dopamine neurons called Reward Prediction Error (RPE) encoding, that sends dopamine mediated feedback signal in our brains, as the reason for our desire to repeat the behaviour or slipping into addiction. He states the example of “casino players experience as the intense anticipation, in playing the slot machine, while those wheels are turning – the moments between the lever pull and outcome, provide time for our dopamine neurons to increase their activity, creating a rewarding feeling just by playing the game.”

 Social media apps are no different, they keep us engaged. By keeping the reward delivered at random (likes for our Facebook, Instagram) and making the reward come at very little cost (Facebook, Instagram are free), we end up checking our phones frequently, get habituated due to boredom at first and soon descend into a state of addiction. Social Media apps also play on the random reward feature of dopamine by withholding notifications of likes and sending them as a single burst of likes, resulting in the rush of dopamine and influence a habitual behaviour of checking our phone repeatedly.

 Dopamine is beneficial and there are ways release of them in other natural ways like exercising can lead to better rewarding and the feel good factors. Research has proven that exercises such as Running, HIIT, Yoga help in releasing a high level of dopamine. As per Runner’s world, “Exercise releases the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, as well as histamine, all of which are linked to feeling more energized,” says Patrick O’Connor, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at the University of Georgia.

 When we exercise, we activate the brain’s reward centers through the release of dopamine that helps us experience pleasure, feel motivated, and maintain repetition. Over time, regular exercise remodels the reward system, leading to higher circulating levels of dopamine and more available dopamine receptors. In this way, exercise can help in providing relief from depression and expand our feel good factor and happiness.

 We can see in both the above cases, dopamine release, helps us with a feel-good factor, happiness and motivation, though I would consider the former as a bad dopamine and the latter the good one. But what I see is another scenario, that is increasingly being played in our lives, especially through Social media apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook etc.

 False news, Rumours, Fake news doctored to elicit “likes, shares and posts” usually among a group of members, aligned to a political group or religion or ideology. They give a dopamine boost, that fails them to see the bigger picture, affirm hostile behaviours, get into a divisive mindset, resulting in disruption in harmony and sometimes even in violence as we have seen in many parts of the world. I consider this effect as the ugly dopamine. They are a menace to the society and we don’t see a solution yet to this phenomenon. We are in a world networked through this social media apps, with tinderboxes waiting to catch fire and rage into an inferno, disrupting harmony and peace. We can see this today in smaller groups in friends and families, in our University Alumni or a political party social media groups.

 What can you and I do to channelize our dopamine? I tried working on some measures and it is working for me and have still a long way to go before I get into perfection.

 1.    Cut down on time spent on Social media apps – This is the most difficult part as I had become so dependent on it to be in touch with friends and relatives. There are good news sources, authoritative sources, that we rely for good news and social media apps do help in relaying them to us. The trick is to minimize social media time and allocate specific leisure time for it and break the dependency on phone.

2.    Restrict posting on Social media – We all have an Op-ed mentality when posting our views in Social media groups. My opinion in a social media group is not going to change the opinion of group, especially if it is polarized. At least I am not a social influencer / icon, to change the thinking among the group, however logical it may be and initiated with a good motive. I realized it comes with the cost of friendship in the group.

3.    Focus on physical exercise – I am fortunate that I am passionate about running and my marathons keep me busy with my practice, to be in shape.

4.    Enjoy good stuff – I have started listening to more music, watching sports, movies, reading books and good food and the occasional scotch or wine. I look forward to the Champions League, English Premiere league or the Tour de France from the comfort of my couch.

5.    Start a new skill – I have taken up writing blogs, learning Spanish, joining a bible study group and even joining a local Sailing club, training to improve my boatmanship that had become rusty from my Navy days.

6. Do an act of Charity - I have found doing an act of charity time to time gives a sense of great satisfaction and at the same time benefit a larger cause. It could be poverty alleviation or making the Planet more sustainable or just helping your neighbour.

7. Take time to think - Allocating time to think gives you lot of ideas, gives you personal time to introspect your life, meditate or just count your blessings.

 I hope it works for you too. Happy dopamining!