I noticed in myself a tendency to check my phone an awful lot. Of course, in our modern world, such a tendency is far from strange. We've become so addled, in fact, as a society that we hardly blink when a close friend or a date checks their phone obsessively or even becomes temporarily immersed, forsaking the real world for the digital one.
In my case, I didn't enjoy it, and decided to stop, which of course proved trickier than I would've anticipated.
In the process of "quitting", I got to examining the term "screen addiction" and what exactly we mean by it. As with so many other addictive behaviors, it's seldom the substance itself that keeps us coming back. It's the dopamine rush, most of the time, or so we're told. I'm no neuroscientist. I can't very well tell you what happens inside our brain when we laugh at memes.
But I dare formulate some theories based on my own experience. Sure, certain screen-related activities like video games, gambling or pornography might give us a brief surge of satisfaction that keeps us coming back. But often, when people complain of a screen addiction, they don't mean that. Often, screen addiction manifests through obsessively refreshing your feed or aimlessly scrolling your social media accounts.
Is that also a herald of dopamine? Yes. But it's not empty. It's not pleasure for pleasure's sake. Rather, I'd argue, the reason so many of us get hooked to our little devices is because they give us a sense of belonging. Much as we might fear the rise of AI, screens have already become these personified, humanesque avatars that populate our waking world more than our friends and partners.
After all, what does it say about you if you're constantly checking your messages? That you long to be acknowledged. Called to the fire to share with your tribesmen in something communal. Albeit perhaps trivial.
A dependency to our social media bespeaks a similar desire to belong, even if indirectly. We'll scroll our feeds not necessarily looking to actively engage, but rather searching for ourselves in the eyes of another. A vast chunk of social media platforms are now filled by pictures and reels and little in-jokes that play on the trope of "if this is you, like this post". We'll delight for hours at a time in viewing little videos that capture how we're exasperated at work or longing for that next trip or failing to meet up with friends... all these things that say you're human are pooled together to give you an artificial sense of belonging.
But artifice is all it is. At the end of the day, having spent three hours scrolling TikTok, you're no closer to a community or a sense of identity than you were when you started. Giggling to yourself in the privacy of your own bedroom and commenting "lol same" does not constitute the magic cure to the isolating epidemic ravaging our 21st century world.
Like many in the digital sphere, I was quick to fall in love with Phoebe Waller-Bridge's hit series Fleabag. Lauded by many for capturing something essentially human, the series garnered critical acclaim (as well as a loyal base of supporters). Recently, I saw a video with Fleabag star Andrew Scott responding to a Tweet of someone saying they watched the show and cried obsessively, even after years.
To which, Scott encouraged the person to go actually live and do something meaningful with their lives. It was a bit jarring to our increasingly infantilized and obsessive digital culture, especially coming form a movie star to a fan, but he perfectly captured the false sense of community that the digital world has created. While it's all very nice to cry or laugh at a show or a reel that you identify with, they shouldn't replace actual community and social interaction.
Because they can't.
Seeing yourself in a reel or a program can be heartening, but at the end of the day, it's still just you seeing yourself, not someone else seeing you truly.
I think it's telling that although we recognize screen addiction as a problem, we treat it as its own separate thing. We'll talk about blue light exposure and mental health and all those "dangers". At the same time, we tend to belittle the actual addictive material. I'm obsessed with this silly little gadget, with silly little memes, we'll say deriding ourselves. As if something so small and insignificant shouldn't have the power to enslave us.
Except it's not small at all. Community, a sense of tribe, is one of the most powerful images in our lives. And presently, that's what the digital-sphere is offering us. It's not the meme you're dependent on. It's the notion that someone else out there might mirror you.
I'd argue that the rising numbers of screen addicts point to a severe lack in our society, that of actual communal sharing, of belonging to a tribe larger than yourself or your partner or your mum. Which ought to change how we treat screen addiction. We approach it with the old weaning yourself off mentality, and that works on a very surface level. But the problem isn't as simple as I keep scrolling Instagram and wanna cut back. As long as we don't replace screens with something that nurtures our hungering for belonging, we're doomed to fall back into addictive patterns. Be it screens or something else. As long as you don't address the underlying problem, you're doomed to keep repeating a false narrative in your life.
And so, instead of asking what there's too much of in your existence right now, a better question might be what is it that you're lacking?
Better yet, what is it that you've been conditioned to think you're lacking? Because our standard for community has gone off chart with the advent of technology. In other words, we now feel small and pathetic when we don't belong to a huge, global web of people. We're no longer content with our small circle of friends and neighbors, even if the human psyche is built to thrive in precisely that smaller, more cloistered community.
We are not equipped to belong to the global tribe. Not now, perhaps not ever. Which leads more and more of us into depression and anxiety, waiting for the human radio to blast us at full volume and at all hours.
We don't need that. We're not made for that. We're made to just enjoy the silence sometimes. The sun on our skin. The smell of fresh-baked goods coming from the bakery we're passing. We lack the tools to meet a skewed goal. Thus trapped between an impossible ideal and a rising sense of personal failure, no wonder we're falling into darker and darker addictions.
Obviously, not making light of porn or gambling or game addictions. They're simply not my concern with this write-up.
That was a very interesting read! You obviously thought that through for some time. I am old enough to remember when we had one phone hanging on the wall and a party line. Once we left the house, we were disconnected from everything and everybody. It was much different than it is today. I have a cell phone and learned how to text because that's how my adult children prefer to communicate. I don't have social media on my phone. Oddly enough, the one thing I tend to waste time on is looking at the photos I've taken on my phone. I haven't analyzed that habit yet!
I study neuroscience. From what I have read in the literature (very limited) there is a lack of inhibitory processes that drive phone addiction. Basically it's like the brakes that usually tell you to not do something are wore out.
Also, dopamine is like a motivation neurotransmitter more so than for pleasure. This is why no one feels satisfied after endless hours of doom scrolling. Good luck with cutting the cords.
Some people tend to feel inferior when they do not belong to a particular group. It is normal though because no one will love to be left out…