How to Reduce Your Tendency to Seek Dopamine

Read this to...

1. To improve your brain health.
2. To control your phone addiction.
3. To protect yourself against cheap dopamine.

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Cheap quick dopamine is everywhere in the 21st century.

(Fast news, TikTok, Instagram likes, Porn, Instant communication...)

And it's making you dumb and lazy. Sorry.

It's making you unwilling to do hard things. It's also distracting you from what makes you more intelligent — like books.

So I decided to write this article as my own advice-to-myself. Hope it forces you to look in the mirror and make some changes.

The first question I asked myself was this:

What are the sources of quick dopamine in my life? What things are programming my brain to crave and give in to quick hits?

Immediately, it came to me.

My relationship with my smartphone.

The smartphone is by far the greatest driver of dopamine-seeking behavior. For one, it takes a lot of people's time these days. Two, it is designed to stimulate dopamine and make you an addict. Yes, DESIGNED!

Here is some research about the impact of smartphone use on mental health, anxiety, and productivity.

Problematic smartphone use was reported in approximately one in every four youth, and was accompanied by an increased odds of poorer mental health. Problematic smartphone use is an evolving public health concern that requires greater study to determine the boundary between helpful and harmful technology use.

Ready for hyper-technical science-speak?

Problematic smartphone use is related to musculoskeletal pain (Xie?et?al., 2016), traffic and pedestrian accidents (Cazzulino?et?al., 2014), worse physical fitness (i.e., headaches, fatigue, dizziness, tension, memory loss, and hearing loss) (Alosaimi?et?al., 2016), and academic problems (Lepp?et?al., 2014). Moreover, there is extensive evidence demonstrating the adverse effect of problematic smartphone use on mental health, such as stress (Harwood?et?al., 2014; Venkatesh?et?al., 2019), poor sleep quality (Cabre-Riera?et?al., 2019; Chung?et?al., 2018; Demir?and Sümer,?2019; Dewi?et?al., 2018; Lee?et?al., 2017; Wang?et?al., 2019), depression (Firat?et?al., 2018; Kim?et?al., 2017, 2019, 2018), and anxiety (Hawi?and Samaha,?2017; Tao?et?al., 2017). is related to musculoskeletal pain (Xie?et?al., 2016), traffic and pedestrian accidents (Cazzulino?et?al., 2014), worse physical fitness (i.e., headaches, fatigue, dizziness, tension, memory loss, and hearing loss) (Alosaimi?et?al., 2016), and academic problems (Lepp?et?al., 2014). Moreover, there is extensive evidence demonstrating the adverse effect of PSU on mental health, such as stress (Harwood?et?al., 2014; Venkatesh?et?al., 2019), poor sleep quality (Cabre-Riera?et?al., 2019; Chung?et?al., 2018; Demir?and Sümer,?2019; Dewi?et?al., 2018; Lee?et?al., 2017; Wang?et?al., 2019), depression (Firat?et?al., 2018; Kim?et?al., 2017, 2019, 2018), and anxiety (Hawi?and Samaha,?2017; Tao?et?al., 2017).

Let's summarize it all: Smartphone use is associated with stress, ADD symptoms, and poor mental health outcomes. But does it make you a dopamine addict? Yes.

The neural circuit reinforced by your smartphone is this: Apply low effort for lots of dopamine. Essentially, your brain learns to get dopamine for no effort. And this is dangerous. Here's why.

When your brain gets used to this, it becomes more challenging to apply effort for long-term rewards. That is, it gets more challenging to not give into instant gratification and commit to long-term actions. Your self-control crumbles as your brain gets used to quick wins.

So how do you re-engineer your smartphone, so you can re-engineer your brain? I list all my strategies below, the highest-priority items are at the top.

Turn off notifications.

Notifications are the culprit. They are associated with increased smartphone use and smartphone checking. If you turn off your notifications, you kill the weeds at their roots.

Only check and manage social media on your desktop.

Social media combines notifications with social validation. A dangerous combination. Given humans are just civilized chimpanzees, we get lots of dopamine from social validation... it's healthy, except when it's digital... This is what leads to increased self-absorption.

Increase friction. Keep your phone out of sight.

Research has shown that even when you're phone is face down on a table in front of you, it still sucks away some of your attention. Put it away.

Increase friction. Keep your apps out of sight.

Keeping your homepage simple and your apps hidden intercepts the instinctive app-checking.

Don't have conversations over text.

This increases the volume of notifications. By focusing your text communication on logistics and planning, you can reduce the volume.

Create rules for turning off your phone.

Schedule offline time, not just downtime. Make it a rule that you shut down your devices at a certain hour. Communicate this to your loved ones. Most things can wait until the morning.

Practice not listening to anything (don't buy air-pods).

Stimulating yourself constantly results in a continuous trickle of dopamine... Eventually, you will not be able to tolerate silence and stillness. Not my idea of a peaceful life.

Throw away the belief that social media is necessary for your success.

Just no. There are email and other ways to manage your customers. My speaker business has expanded through referrals, not LinkedIn.

Tell your friends to call you.

Teaching your friends how to communicate with you is essential. Don't reinforce endless conversations that take you out of the present and increase phone use.

Measure your screen time and monitor it daily.

What you measure you manage. Knowing your numbers will motivate you to put your phone down and make progress.

Adopt the philosophy of digital minimalism.

Digital minimalism?is a philosophy?that helps you?question what?digital communication tools (and behaviors surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that?intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimizing your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life. — Cal Newport

Cal is recommending you audit the apps on your smartphone and ask yourself this question — Is this helping me live a good life? Is this the best use of my time?

Digital minimalism is the same as intentional usage... making the phone your slave, not the other way around.

Some Final Thoughts

Smartphone use is the single greatest driver for dopamine-seeking behaviors. To be free from quick hits, you must engineer your phone to work for you, not the other way around.

Even though I wrote this article, I still struggle. I average about 3 hours each day on my phone — primarily WhatsApp. I intend to batch-reply to friends and family while on a walk... and call people more.

Good luck against smartphone design, powered by millions of dollars of psychological research.

— Jacques

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