Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder's take on behavioral addictions : "Dopamine Addiction is a myth"

I’m surprised you enjoy listening to her, that was painful to watch. Very robotic.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about dopamine. And it’s not opioids. Dopamine is not what’s responsible for the anticipation of a reward. Dopamine is simply a precursor for adrenaline which is why it can be seen as increased during those times. “Phenylalanine and tyrosine constitute the two initial steps in the biosynthesis of dopamine, which, in its turn, is the metabolic precursor of noradrenaline and adrenaline.” Adrenaline is what’s responsible for that feeling of anxiety and desire in anticipation of a reward. This is common sense. Everyone knows what an adrenaline rush feels like, the problem is people in this self improvement space mistake an adrenaline rush for a “dopamine rush” of which doesn’t exist. The dopamine is not what has the affect on your nervous system and brain, it's the adrenaline. The adrenaline that accompanies pmo, sex, extreme sports, video games, gambling drugs, and so on, is what’s responsible for the addiction on the physical level. Social media can definitely have this affect too, considering that every time you open it you scroll through like a mystery box waiting to see what you’ll get. It mimics gambling. So even these scientists studying dopamine appear to have it wrong because they are looking at the wrong things in their studies. It’s similar to saying “look tryptophan levels are higher at night before sleep, it must be responsible for inducing sleep.” No, tryptophan is the precursor for Melatonin.

 

I agree. It’s certainly a ridiculous notion to suggest, as it is entirely subjective. Something like pmo for example, may behaving a negative affect on your life without you even realizing (like most of the population). It’s also ridiculous to suggest that a gambling addiction falls under the category of OCD. No, it’s an addiction to the thrill of gambling.

She’s ignorant, to say the least. The most important thing that you and everyone else should understand is that we do not need scientific evidence to validate whether something is beneficial for us or not. Especially when it comes to something like this. It’s pretty much common sense that too much tech usage will inhibit productivity, discipline, and many other things. So follow your intuition.

 

I've encountered the argument that an action is only an addiction if it negatively impacts your life. But negative impact isn't clearly defined. For example, a negative impact could be that it's limiting my individual growth rate. So, even if my life is slowly improving, it could be drastically improving otherwise if I were to fix said action. I'd classify that as a negative effect, even if there is no tangible proof. I think this definition is often used moreso as a tool for justification rather than one for useful diagnosis.

I like "Dopamine Nation" by Anna Lembke (spelling of her name may be off), I feel like I accurately understand the role of the dopamine system in layman's terms decently. As far as an in depth resource, I like Alex Huberman's podcast, he even had Dr. Lembke on at one point to discuss dopamine.

As for the video, I really dislike the style of constant hyperbole of the ideas you're arguing against in an attempt at humor, it feels like she's trying to convince me, not give me the truth.

She says there's no evidence social media use has an impact on dopamine levels, but she also says earlier that dopamine is released as in anticipation of a reward (which is true). Social media is at many times scrolling and high-speed context switching with the hopes of finding content of interest. This is a, presumably, a dopamine releasing activity. So I'm confused as to why she said there's no impact. Maybe she meant long term baseline dopamine levels? In any case, she sounds like a bit of a shill for social media. I also don't like her assumption that addiction isn't a problematic disorder just because it doesn't show up as easily quantifiable in a book. Overall I disagree, social media can obviously be addicting, and even at a low level, the small impulse to pull out and check your phone for notifications can harmfully impact a date for example. Although in reality it's more devastating to use social media merely for it's other effects, such as comparison to others, exposure to explicit content, etc, rather than merely being addicted to looking at a screen.

That was pretty unorganized on my part because I typed while watching, sorry.