According to a psychology doctor, being entertained by only the smartphone and social networks could make you addicted.” Nothing new, except that it is a question here of a dependence on dopamine, known to be a neurotransmitter responsible for the sensation of pleasure.
Addicted to dopamine?
According to his LinkedIn page, Cameron Sepah holds a doctorate in psychology. The latter offers its services to business leaders to be more efficient with less stress. He published an article on August 7, 2019, to explain how the reward circuit behaves with the use of smartphones.
Cameron Sepah says that the consumption of social networks and smartphones in general causes dopamine addiction. However, the increase in the time devoted to this kind of activity would finally make us less and less sensitive to this pleasure hormone. In other words, excessive use of laptops and social networks could “Blaser” users.
What is this method?
The subject simply advocates fasting to dopamine or dopamine fasting in English. According to an article published by the Business Insider on October 3, 2019, Cameron Sepah regrets, however, that his statements were misinterpreted. In fact, various publications on the networks estimate, among other things, that the dopamine levels of individuals would be above a certain norm and that this could be very dangerous.
The psychology doctor actually wanted to point out the excessive consumption of networks and smartphones by a part of the population of the United States. Indeed, some users spend more than 10 hours per day hung on their mobile, feeding many “fast entertainment”. However, it would be this need to be entertained quickly which would make people less sensitive to dopamine. Moreover, the resulting effects are not really welcome: loss of concentration and attention, control of stimuli, etc.
In support of his argument, the applicant made a comparison with dopaminergic drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. These act on the dopamine receptors as a key opening a lock and over time, negatively regulate these receptors. However, it is precisely this negative regulation that would cause this loss of sensitivity to dopamine. Recall that in January 2019, a study conducted by a team from Michigan State University concluded that the excessive use of social networks is comparable to drug abuse.
