We live in a world of abundance. This is a blessing and something that our species has worked towards since the beginning. Although we have learned that this abundance could lead to our own demise if we are not careful. This overwhelming abundance has manifested in things we need to use with discretion, such as, drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, facebooking, instagraming, youtubing, tweeting, etc. Moreover all these things are accessible right from our smartphones. UberEats has made it easy to have our most indulgent foods delivered to our doorstep at any hour of the day with a few clicks, something I’m guilty of doing more frequently than I would like to admit. Most of these things that we engage in on our devices throughout the day seem completely benign and normalized. But it is the consistency of these vices over time where the real danger lies.
Anna Lembke discusses the issue of addiction that many of us are suffering from in her book Dopamine Nation. She points out that just the constant stimulus from our phones, from any buzzing notification or a like on Instagram, can have a negative impact on our brains over time. Smartphones provide a dopamine hit at varying times throughout the day, and like a gambler at a casino slot machine we become addicted.
Dopamine Nation helps us to navigate this modern world of compulsive overconsumption and establish a healthy balance between pleasure and pain which lies at the heart of addiction.
