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

[MaxWellEquation]

So, a few days ago, Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, has made a video discussing the topic about dopamine and behavioral addictions, specifically social media addiction. Although she didn't discuss porn addiction specifically, I think it might be relevant to discuss here and what you think of her video, because it will likewise (if it gets viral enough) be an influence of the perception of the real issue that Internet addiction is, which also includes porn addiction. I can already smell naive "science bros" citing her video in every comment section now.

Personally, I feel like she argued a straw man at the first minutes, because I don't know anyone, who's serious about this topic, to have ever claimed that some people are literally addicted to dopamine. In fact, most definitely know that it's not the dopamine that is addictive, but (biologically) possibly the opioids that come with the release of dopamine. Dopamine is, simplified, the craving part, which nonetheless heavily contributes to addictive behavior.

I also don't know whether I can follow her statement that "It's only OCD when it negatively affects your life". I feel like this is a very dangerous precedent to make towards the viewers as it can be easily morally interpreted as a "Oh well, then there's no issue then, it doesn't affect me negatively. So everything stays the same". It's entirely prone to subjective interpretation. As soon as you try to make that argument inductive and extend it towards humanity it quickly becomes clear that the "if it only affects your life negatively" argument doesn't quite work. Of course, an addicted person who never questioned their behavior and lives in an environment where their addictive behavior is seen as normal and even encouraged (aka mainstream telling us that "Watching porn every day is healthy, not bad" etc), they would never even think of that what they do is addictive and would never even try to stop it, thus not even be able to recognize whether they are addicted or not unless they actually try to stop.

What do you think? Do I misunderstand Sabine here or is she yet another of those who misunderstand the topic surrounding behavioral addictions? To be honest, I often like to watch her videos, especially because she seems to be one of the few physicists who has no mercy taking on mainstream science takes which warranted questioning for a long time. But I feel like Sabine really missed this time with her video.

 

[MaxWellEquation]

Bumping this thread.

 

[The worst is over]

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

In fact, most definitely know that it's not the dopamine that is addictive, but (biologically) possibly the opioids that come with the release of dopamine. Dopamine is, simplified, the craving part, which nonetheless heavily contributes to addictive behavior.

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.

 

[The worst is over]

I also don't know whether I can follow her statement that "It's only OCD when it negatively affects your life". I feel like this is a very dangerous precedent to make towards the viewers as it can be easily morally interpreted as a "Oh well, then there's no issue then, it doesn't affect me negatively. So everything stays the same". It's entirely prone to subjective interpretation.

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.

What do you think? Do I misunderstand Sabine here or is she yet another of those who misunderstand the topic surrounding behavioral addictions?

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.

 

[MaxWellEquation]

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.

Now that's quite interesting. Most of the info I had about dopamine was via YBOP (Your Brain On Porn) and a website teaching neurochemistry. It's unfortunate that YBOP does not really mention dopamine being a metabolic precursor of adrenaline at all, it only mentioned adrenaline briefly regarding "malfunctional stress system".

If I may ask, do you have any good resources available to more properly inform myself? (websites, pdfs, etc) It's quite difficult nowadays separating the wheat from the chaff in this environment.

 

[Shouganai]

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.