We wake up to our alarms, check our health meters on our smart watches, live in smart homes, socialize on the internet and we are a new breed of humans completely different from the humans a few years before. This vast difference in the 'breed' is due to the rapid growth of technology and its impact and availability in our lives.
Your neighbour's kid probably lives on smart devices much more than you and you much more than your parents. That's atleast a generation gap, in general, you can notice patterns of difference in kids within a few years. So, how is it affecting us ?
We are covering here, the aspects of how we've got attached to our devices so much more than our own wives (just saying-it should have been the other way). Technology's biggest argue is to be able to work more efficiently, thus save us time for things that matter - family, friends, relations, leisure etc.
Most people spend between 1 to 4 hours on their phones each day. On an average lifetime, it amounts to 11 years ..... note '11 years' of your life will be wasted checking mails, texting, gaming etc. We are robbed of time.....and yet more, we are 'addicted' to it.
Addiction dating back to history
A great way of studying how addiction works goes back to drug addiction. Go back to how heroine hit, why people kept going back, patterns suggest behavioural patterns which help us understand the idea behind it. Obsession is a thought one cannot keep out of mind. Addiction is an obsession with an immediate reward.
[A small piece of advice to some people who believe experimenting anything is always a good idea. In general, that would be good but you may not want to try that with things like 'heroine', earlier considered to have medicinal properties have ended lives of some great scientists because they were just trying it out (without the knowledge) and late couldn't resist. ]
How Addiction Works
'Septum', an area in our mid brain is known as the 'Pleasure centre' of the brain. It releases 'dopamine', the happy hormone which makes us feel a surge of happiness and excitement. The drug stimulates the release of dopamine and the after effect is what causes one of go back to the drug each time - addiction. The problem with drugs is a certain quantity of drug can cause a certain amount of dopamine stimulation and that reduces with time. Which means over time, one needs to increase the amount of drug ingested to feel the same amount of 'happiness surge'.
Addiction can have some triggers which cause regaining of addictive behaviours
-the old environment during addiction (including old peers, house, neighbourhood etc.)
Behavioural Addiction
Our pineal gland produces a hormone 'melatonin' which induces sleep. This is stimulated by red light and its opposite happens when it sees blue light. Our smart phone screens emit the 'blue light'. So while you go to bed checking your screen, you end up telling your brain to prepare for the day.....ending up with some useless screen scrolling.
Our screen addictions lead to 2 benefits -
Technology gives us behavioural addiction vs drug addiction. Drug addiction is more dangerous because its ability to stimulate the happiness centre is more intense. Both have similar dopamine spike patterns and result in relief from psychological distress.
The New Health Goals
Our smart apps have caused us to set new health goals and there are plenty success stories of weight loss, healthier humans and they are the good side of the story. There's a little catch. You may not have noticed, each day you spend a few hours obsessing about the steps you've taken and the self-goals you beat. Most of the time they are unconscious and driven by your smart watch. Most probably, you also donot spend valuable time on celebrating the success you get through the hard work. We overlook our own biological clocks, it was designed pretty well indeed.
Here's a case. A person said, "My fitbit thinks I can do better" with a prosthetic leg.
These goals pile up and they fuel addictive pursuits that bring failure or perhaps worse, repeated success that spawns one new ambitious goal after another.
Your life of odd 60 average years looks like this-
-20 years (education you were barely thinking)
-11 years (screen scrolling)
-rest clumped with minor milestones of 'monitored health goals', 'social influence goals' etc.
Where's the main stuff ? Weren't you dreaming of helping out the poor kids in Africa? Weren't you going to find a cure to cancer ? Weren't you going to make a dent on the universe? Weren't you going to fly to the moon? Now those are goals! That's what you regret not doing on things like 'death beds'.
P.S. These are a set of facts i've read recently. It is purely for educational purpose and to help you take better decisions. I have not set a conclusion here. I started reading this for a friend addicted to smoking and it made me curious to understand the triggers behind it. That however never helped my friend but I ended up learning great stuff ! I will put up more detailed blogs once I read more of the book
Reference - Inspired by the book 'Irresistible - by Adam Alter'
Your neighbour's kid probably lives on smart devices much more than you and you much more than your parents. That's atleast a generation gap, in general, you can notice patterns of difference in kids within a few years. So, how is it affecting us ?
We are covering here, the aspects of how we've got attached to our devices so much more than our own wives (just saying-it should have been the other way). Technology's biggest argue is to be able to work more efficiently, thus save us time for things that matter - family, friends, relations, leisure etc.
Most people spend between 1 to 4 hours on their phones each day. On an average lifetime, it amounts to 11 years ..... note '11 years' of your life will be wasted checking mails, texting, gaming etc. We are robbed of time.....and yet more, we are 'addicted' to it.
Addiction dating back to history
A great way of studying how addiction works goes back to drug addiction. Go back to how heroine hit, why people kept going back, patterns suggest behavioural patterns which help us understand the idea behind it. Obsession is a thought one cannot keep out of mind. Addiction is an obsession with an immediate reward.
[A small piece of advice to some people who believe experimenting anything is always a good idea. In general, that would be good but you may not want to try that with things like 'heroine', earlier considered to have medicinal properties have ended lives of some great scientists because they were just trying it out (without the knowledge) and late couldn't resist. ]
How Addiction Works
'Septum', an area in our mid brain is known as the 'Pleasure centre' of the brain. It releases 'dopamine', the happy hormone which makes us feel a surge of happiness and excitement. The drug stimulates the release of dopamine and the after effect is what causes one of go back to the drug each time - addiction. The problem with drugs is a certain quantity of drug can cause a certain amount of dopamine stimulation and that reduces with time. Which means over time, one needs to increase the amount of drug ingested to feel the same amount of 'happiness surge'.
Addiction can have some triggers which cause regaining of addictive behaviours
-the old environment during addiction (including old peers, house, neighbourhood etc.)
Behavioural Addiction
Our pineal gland produces a hormone 'melatonin' which induces sleep. This is stimulated by red light and its opposite happens when it sees blue light. Our smart phone screens emit the 'blue light'. So while you go to bed checking your screen, you end up telling your brain to prepare for the day.....ending up with some useless screen scrolling.
Our screen addictions lead to 2 benefits -
- Dopamine secreation
- Emotional relief
Technology gives us behavioural addiction vs drug addiction. Drug addiction is more dangerous because its ability to stimulate the happiness centre is more intense. Both have similar dopamine spike patterns and result in relief from psychological distress.
The New Health Goals
Our smart apps have caused us to set new health goals and there are plenty success stories of weight loss, healthier humans and they are the good side of the story. There's a little catch. You may not have noticed, each day you spend a few hours obsessing about the steps you've taken and the self-goals you beat. Most of the time they are unconscious and driven by your smart watch. Most probably, you also donot spend valuable time on celebrating the success you get through the hard work. We overlook our own biological clocks, it was designed pretty well indeed.
Here's a case. A person said, "My fitbit thinks I can do better" with a prosthetic leg.
These goals pile up and they fuel addictive pursuits that bring failure or perhaps worse, repeated success that spawns one new ambitious goal after another.
Your life of odd 60 average years looks like this-
-20 years (education you were barely thinking)
-11 years (screen scrolling)
-rest clumped with minor milestones of 'monitored health goals', 'social influence goals' etc.
Where's the main stuff ? Weren't you dreaming of helping out the poor kids in Africa? Weren't you going to find a cure to cancer ? Weren't you going to make a dent on the universe? Weren't you going to fly to the moon? Now those are goals! That's what you regret not doing on things like 'death beds'.
P.S. These are a set of facts i've read recently. It is purely for educational purpose and to help you take better decisions. I have not set a conclusion here. I started reading this for a friend addicted to smoking and it made me curious to understand the triggers behind it. That however never helped my friend but I ended up learning great stuff ! I will put up more detailed blogs once I read more of the book
Reference - Inspired by the book 'Irresistible - by Adam Alter'
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