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- Are you having trouble turning off technology?
- Checking your emails and text messages 3+ times/hour?
- Becoming more irritable and terse with people who want your attention?
- Can't locate the "off" switch or even "pause" button to your life?
You're probably willing to admit in an almost self-congratulatory way that you're addicted to technology. But I'm guessing you'd have a little more difficulty admitting with any humor that it is your cocaine.
Here's my evidence that it just might be.
As a neuroscientist I have a passion for understanding the brain and mind, what makes them tick and what ticks them off and what tips them over the edge. With that in mind I'd like to briefly explore five brain chemicals or hormones: oxytocin, serotonin, endorphine, dopamine, adrenaline (i.e. norepinephrine).
When we're running on oxytocin we feel and want to feel connected and close to others. It is the hormone that underlies intimacy and I don't mean lust, I mean love.
When we're running on serotonin we're able to move through the world without obsessing, ruminating or dwelling on things in a counterproductive way. That is why serotonergic meds are prescribed to people with OCD and depression (who are known to ruminate too much).
When we're running on endorphin, we feel a sense of well being with a positive self esteem and outlook on the world. It's a natural occurring morphine like chemical and like morphine it helps us to chill out and feel pain free (which is what morphine does). People who exercise for a long enough time cause endorphins to kick in and often help people to sustain their motivation to continue doing it.
When we're running on dopamine, we feel a sense of pleasure and fun and delight. It's more personal than the sense of well-being that endorphin makes us feel. It puts a smile on our face which is more than just being "pain free" but is not quite "over the top" excited as in what follows next about adrenaline.
When we're running on adrenaline, we're high on "power." An adrenaline rush can be intoxicating in that regard. The problem is that the torment from an adrenaline crash can exceed the thrill of an adrenaline rush and in a short time people continue to engage in activities that provide that rush not for the high, but to prevent the crash. Add to this the fact that many people with ADD when not running on endogenous adrenaline or using stimulants or in the extreme, crack or regular cocaine, feel unfocused, irritable, listless, etc. and you can see how they will do anything to keep the adrenaline flowing.
Well guess what? Technology and just the quick action of texting or typing fast is a rapidly escalating "stimulus response" cascade that crosses over into stimulating adrenaline more than dopamine or the other mentioned chemicals. This crosses over into people talking very fast and actually being able to understand each other who are fellow subscribers of the "adrenaline please network."
The problem with and for a society addicted to adrenaline rushes is that it will have trouble communicating (beyond text), cooperating, collaborating and worst of all caring about each other. Caring and relating requires pausing to listen and hear what people are saying and also what they're not saying between their words (which requires deeply focused on them listening) and then caring enough about it to actually actually consider it before you respond back. I'm betting that few of you experience that in your conversations.
Oh, certainly you can communicate in a way to get stuff done and "getting stuff done" seems to be the sine qua non for feeling productive. And feeling productive seems to superficially help people's immunity to listlessness and boredom.
The problem is that a pure focus on getting stuff done is antithetical to empathy.
Why should we care about empathy? Without empathy, other people become objects whose sole purpose is to please us by either facilitating us getting what we want or to frustrate us by thwarting us. And that's a zero sum game.
The real danger is that empathy is also the main deterrent to violence against other human beings. And when sufficient thwarting, frustration mounts, empathy doesn't just disappear, it turns to antipathy.
And when that happens, "Bang, bang you're dead!"
