Technology-Driven Overabundance Fuels Addiction and Erodes Human Connection

Key Quotes

"Dopamine is a chemical we make in our brain but I use it in the book as really an extended metaphor for the ways in which overabundance itself is a human stressor. We are living in a time and place where we have more access to luxury goods, more disposable income, more leisure time, even for the poorest of the poor, ever before in recorded history, and it turns out that is stressful for our brains and it's stressful in a brand new way that we really haven't confronted before, making us all more vulnerable to the problem of compulsive overconsumption and addiction."

Dr. Anna Lembke explains that dopamine, while a brain chemical, serves as a metaphor for how an excess of readily available pleasures in modern society creates stress. This overabundance, she argues, makes individuals more susceptible to compulsive overconsumption and addiction, a problem she identifies as a significant challenge for the foreseeable future.

"What addictive drugs and behaviors do is they mimic those natural rewards by exploiting our internal brain chemistry to release a lot of dopamine all at once, much more than we would get from natural rewards existing in nature, amplifying that experience, making it even more memorable, even more salient, and also making our brain think, 'Ah, this is important for my survival.'"

Dr. Lembke highlights how addictive substances and behaviors hijack the brain's reward system by artificially amplifying dopamine release. This intense surge, far exceeding natural rewards, makes the experience highly memorable and tricks the brain into prioritizing it for survival, thus driving compulsive use.

"What we see now is the drugification of human connection. For example, through social media, dating apps, online pornography, and now artificial intelligence and other large language models, which create this frictionless experience with technology that feels like talking to a human being and is incredibly validating."

Dr. Lembke expresses concern about how technology, including social media, dating apps, and AI, is increasingly simulating human connection. She points out that these platforms offer a frictionless and validating experience, which can be highly reinforcing and potentially lead to addictive patterns by replacing genuine human interaction.

"The relentless pursuit of pleasure for its own sake leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to take joy in anything at all because of this process of neuro adaptation and the way that our brain recalibrates pleasure and pain such that with the more pleasure we pursue, the more pleasure we need, and the more we feel pain. No matter what we have, eventually it won't be enjoyable anymore, and that is the problem."

Dr. Lembke describes the phenomenon of anhedonia, the loss of the ability to experience joy, as a consequence of constantly seeking pleasure. She explains that through neuroadaptation, the brain recalibrates its response to pleasure and pain, leading to a cycle where more pleasure is required to achieve the same effect, and pain intensifies, ultimately diminishing overall enjoyment.

"The worst part is those first 10 to 14 days. That's when we're in acute withdrawal. And the reason for that is when we first take our reward off the pleasure side of the balance, our pleasure pain balance crashes down to the side of pain because of this process of neuroadaptation. Now we're in the state of acute withdrawal, and I will have what are the characteristics of withdrawal: anxiety, irritability, insomnia, dysphoria or depressed mood, and cravings."

Dr. Lembke details the challenging initial phase of withdrawal from addictive substances or behaviors. She explains that this period, characterized by anxiety, irritability, and intense cravings, occurs because the brain, having adapted to the external reward, experiences a significant dip into a pain state as it attempts to rebalance itself.

"The simple fact that we're talking about these problems now, which we weren't doing 10, 15 years ago, I think is a good thing. There's much more awareness in the population about the potential dangers of digital media, and at the forefront of raising the alarm has been parents, because parents are seeing the sort of disintegration of the nuclear family in real time and they don't like it."

Dr. Lembke expresses optimism about increased societal awareness regarding the dangers of digital media. She highlights that parents are particularly vocal in raising concerns, as they witness the negative impacts on family structures firsthand, suggesting that this growing consciousness is a positive step toward addressing these issues.

"I recommend doing the hard things first. A shorthand way of saying that is to start your day with pain. Meaning, for example, do the hard things when you first get up as part of your morning routine, like exercise, make your bed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, plan your day, plan what you're going to do if you haven't done it already, and do all of those things before, for example, you have your morning cup of joe or before you touch a single screen or a digital device."

Dr. Lembke advises starting the day with challenging activities before engaging in pleasurable ones. She suggests that by prioritizing difficult tasks like exercise or planning the day before consuming reinforcing stimuli such as coffee or digital devices, individuals can set a more productive tone and avoid having their goals hijacked by immediate gratification.

"Another really interesting experiment is the rat park experiment, and this is the work of Bruce Alexander. And he essentially said, well, if you put a rat in a cage with nothing else to do but press a lever for cocaine, of course that's what they're going to do because there's nothing else happening. But what if you put a rat in a very enriched environment with a lever to press cocaine, but also lots of other things to do--other rats, shoots, and mazes, little sawdust balls--what he discovered was that the rat is much less likely to press that lever as often because it has other reinforcing things to do."

Dr. Lembke discusses the rat park experiment to illustrate the influence of environment on addiction. She explains that rats in isolated cages readily choose cocaine, but when provided with an enriched environment offering social interaction and other activities, they are significantly less likely to engage in self-destructive drug-seeking behavior, highlighting the importance of social and environmental factors.