Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts | Life and style | The Guardian
According to addiction expert Dr Anna Lembke, our smartphones are making us dopamine junkies, with each swipe, like and tweet feeding our habit. So how do we beat our digital dependency?
For some years now, a number of people working in mental health care have noticed what some have described as a "pervasive, low-grade mental disorder" characterised by increased signs of depression, antisocial behaviour, and passive-aggressive reactions to normal situations. And some have questioned whether there is a link between this and the increased use of smartphones. The term "internet addiction disorder" was used for some time, though perhaps better replaced with "smartphone addiction disorder". The underlying biology of dopamine addiction is possibly sufficient to explain all of this, but can the answer be to simply put the phone in a drawer?
#technology #tech #psychology #psychiatry #MentalHealth #dopamine #addiction
