March 28, 2024

Thursday Open Comments

The evil of social media is commonly assumed. The hypothetical mechanism is the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine, the simplest reduction says, is what causes us to become addicted to things like social media, drugs that make us feel high, snack foods, and receiving “likes” on social media.

To the extent that it is understood, dopamine is part of human and animal learning in that it rewards us for seeking out things we’re biologically programmed to like, like eating, drinking, and reproductive fun. Other neurotransmitters in the brain probably have more to do with the sensation of pleasure, but dopamine can cause us to become addicted. The addictive effect comes from a tease effect: The dopamine reward decreases with increase in the use of the substance or the behavior. Dopamine appears to be a key factor in addicts developing a tolerance for the things they are addicted to.

In the context of the internet sites and devices we are supposedly addicted to, this theory accounts for why it can become a compulsion to engage in social media—a compulsion with decreasing rewards the more you engage. The first social media “like” you receive gives you a sense of pleasure that the 20th “like” on a given day simply cannot match.

The Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science lays out the basic problem:

Why does social media make us unhappy? The feeling of insecurity and anxiety after a period of scrolling through meaningless posts has become universal (Cleveland Clinic, 2020). On the other extreme, the feeling of euphoria and relief that overcome us when we receive likes on our most recent post has also become common.

The dopamine explanation is a compelling theory, and it seems to match experience. Is it unfair or illicit for product designers and sellers to make use of our natural tendencies toward addictive behavior? Here, think of product designers such as app programmers for social media, or snack food engineers. If so, does the same judgment also apply to businesses like wine and beer manufacture that were making use of the dopamine effect for millennia before anyone had ever heard of dopamine? Should brewers and distillers be given any less blame for people becoming addicted to their wares than the purveyors of online “likes” that make your digital gizmo buzz and vibrate against your skin?