By: Amogh Prakash
Date: 02/20/2025
We have all done it. It's late at night and you’re tired, laying in bed and you decide to scroll for a few minutes as a way to relax before you sleep. After a little bit you look up at your clock and… three hours have passed! How does this happen, why are we addicted to scrolling and does that really harm your brain?
Watson 24 from Harvard Health Publishing explains “Dopamine is most notably involved in helping us feel pleasure as part of the brain's reward system.” she furthers “This feel-good neurotransmitter is also involved in reinforcement. That's why, once we try one of those cookies, we might come back for another one (or two, or three).” This explains why short form content is so addicting. Your brain gets a jolt of dopamine every time you scroll and watch an enjoyable video, constantly wanting more. Dopamine can actually be really helpful. According to the article, dopamine also plays a big role in “ learning and attention, mood, movement, heart rate, kidney function, blood vessel function” and much more. Dopamine makes you happy, usually.
UC Davis Health 24 explains “Social media use may increase feelings of anxiety and depression, specifically in teens and young adults.” But wait I thought dopamine was a good thing. If dopamine means you’re happy, how does dopamine relate to addictive behaviours, anxiety, and depression? Well dopamine can be really helpful but every rush of dopamine doesn’t last forever. That brings us to the dark side of dopamine, this craving of wanting more and more can become an addiction, similar to gambling. You are betting on each new video to be good and you can make that verdict almost instantly as the videos are usually just a few seconds long. McLean Hospital explains “When the outcome is unpredictable, the behavior is more likely to repeat.” There are 86,400 seconds in a day, it doesn’t seem bad to watch a few 15 second videos, but they add up quick. Katella 24 of Yale Medicine explains how social media can become an addiction “the excessive use of social media can harm teens by disrupting important healthy behaviors. Some researchers think that exposure to social media can overstimulate the brain's reward center and, when the stimulation becomes excessive, can trigger pathways comparable to addiction.” The overstimulation is an excess of dopamine hits, after those dopamine hits we get a crash. Huberman Lab explains “Dopamine crashes after a peak, typically because the level of dopamine drops below the baseline level after a high dopamine-releasing event or activity. The extent of the drop is proportional to how high the peak was; more intense the peak, deeper the trough would be. This drop can lead to a subsequent decrease in mood and motivation until dopamine levels eventually return to baseline” Meaning after every sudden and unsustainable jolt of dopamine we experience a crash, proportional to the increase of dopamine we had.
Okay so now we know why we are addicted to scrolling, and that we get a crash after every dopamine rush. How do they combine into causing bad mental health? Well everyone wants to be liked, McLean Hospital furthers, “To boost self-esteem and feel a sense of belonging in their social circles, people post content with the hope of receiving positive feedback” McLean Hospital also talks about FOMO-Fear Of Missing Out, “If everyone else is using social media sites, and if someone doesn’t join in, there’s concern that they’ll miss jokes, connections, or invitations. Missing experiences can create anxiety and depression. When people look online and see they’re excluded from an activity, it can affect thoughts and feelings, and can affect them physically.” So the want to be liked and FOMO can both cause mental health issues and increase the risk of anxiety and depression. Combine these with always seeing pictures of other people on vacation, at the beach, or celebrities and models living unrealistic, lavish lifestyles, and it seems like your life is much worse than it actually is.
In the status quo this issue will only get worse, the younger generation use social media more than the older ones, and nowadays young kids have even started to use social media. The younger teens start using social media, the greater impact it can have on their mental health. Katella 24 of Yale Medicine states “According to a research study of American teens ages 12-15, those who used social media over three hours each day faced twice the risk of having negative mental health outcomes.” Another risk is the content that teens can be exposed to on social media, especially at younger ages. Katella 24 of Yale Medicine furthers “Teens can easily access extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content. In certain cases, deaths have been linked to suicide- and self-harm-related content, such as ‘cutting,’ partial asphyxiation, and risk-taking challenges on social media platforms.” It is extremely dangerous for teens to use social media, especially if it is not regulated. They may be exposed to harmful content in many ways, whether that is content that glorifies harm and violence, or content that seems to be harmless, but can subconsciously make a teen feel worse about their mind, bodies, or lives.
But how do we recover from this? How do we relieve these dopamine crashes? Huberman Lab tells us “A break from dopaminergic seeking behaviors and substances is crucial.” This has also been called a dopamine detox or dopamine fasting. In other words, take a break from social media! It’s the first step to regaining your natural dopamine levels and feeling happier. Huberman Lab also says “Understanding that a too frequent pursuit of activities that cause dopamine spikes can lead to an increased need for those activities, potentially escalating into addictive behaviors. Learning to establish healthy dopamine schedules can help maintain motivation and avoid dopamine crashes” Basically you need to find a way to regulate how often you use social media, whatever works for you. SOme people can set a time limit on their phone and that works, others need to unfollow many people who they don’t know and turn off notifications for these apps, experiment and figure out what helps you stay off social media for excessive periods of time. With these approaches Huberman Lab also suggests “engaging in alternate activities that offer more sustainable enjoyment and fulfillment.” These could be a variety of things, like: gardening, biking, playing a sport, meditating, yoga, going for a hike, and many more.
We need to remember, dopamine can be good, but there is a balance required for it to be helpful. Having too much or too little dopamine can negatively impact you. And social media is designed to be addictive like a drug, and overuse of social media can lead to horrible mental health issues, especially in developing teens.
Amogh Prakash
Member of TMHI/Fooditude
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