How Fast Dopamine Makes Your Life Worse And What You Can Do With That
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Starting a day with social media is a bad idea. You only increase your anxiety and receive fast dopamine — but without satisfaction. If you find something good, you will smile, but more likely you will find bad news (especially nowadays in coronavirus time) and posts that inspire only envy and feeling that you’re not ok.
So I decided to make a new, more healthy habit of starting a day with something productive. They say sport is the best way to start your day but it doesn’t really work for me, at least for now. A good breakfast and a hot tea wakes me up better. The problem is that I am scrolling my social feed during my breakfast and just can’t help it! It’s a bad habit — like smoking, I physically feel this need in knowing what has happened while I was asleep. It seems so important to me! What if– but I don’t really know what can be so important. Someone got married? Or someone cooked a new meal? Or visited a new bar or a cafe? This doesn’t really matter to me even if they are my good friends (probably except marriage, but if we are real friends I don’t think I will find out about it from social media).
Well, I need to find a new habit for breakfast. What can it be? They say it’s better not to watch or read something while you eat — but let’s be honest, there is no way you will eat in silence. People always read or watched something during breakfast even at times when there were only books and newspapers. No social media, no TV — but same need to do something else, not just chewing your meal. Even as a child I used to read Harry Potter books during my meals. And yes, I reread them many times. It was awesome.
Social media gives us fast dopamine and books or long videos give “slow” dopamine. It’s almost like fast and slow carbs. You can eat a chocolate bar and you will be satisfied and full for 30 minutes. Or you can eat vegetables and pasta and you will be full for the next 2 hours — but maybe not so satisfied ’cause there is no sugar which our bodies love so much.
The same with content. You consume fast and short content and are never satisfied — you want more and more because your brain produces more and more dopamine to receive new information. It happens because our brain is always craving for information: it helps us to survive so the brain can’t live without it. And if there is any source of information it can use — it uses it. Social media is a brilliant source because it’s limitless. You can scroll, and scroll, and scroll — and there always be some information to receive even if it’s not really important for our surviving (let’s be honest — your friend’s hangover won’t help you to live your day today and you will live great without knowing about it).
Dopamine helps us to gain our goals and to get what we need — food, water, sex etc. — everything you need to survive and live your best life. So the brain will always produce dopamine if it thinks it will help us — that’s why since the information is so important for us we will always fall in social feed and can stop scrolling only by an effort of will. You will never stop it naturally because your brain doesn’t want you to stop receiving information. It craves more. Always.
And that’s why you will always feel not fully satisfied — or not satisfied at all. Fast dopamine disappears fast, and you need more interesting, more important, more entertaining information with every next post or short video. And you keep scrolling.
In opposition, books and long videos, although they need some dopamine too to be read or watched, work like slow carbs. Brain produces dopamine for you to start reading or watching and if this book or video doesn’t end in a few seconds or minutes, you don’t need to receive another big portion of dopamine. You can receive some to continue watching or reading when you get tired — but it’s absolutely not the same with new portions of dopamine every minute in Tik Tok. That happens because even though you receive new information in this video or book you ALREADY FOUND IT. Your brain realizes that you don’t need to search for something else now — you need to get everything you can from THIS source. And only after that you will go searching for something new.
That’s why “slow” dopamine is better than “fast” one. That’s why I need to change my morning routine from scrolling social feed to reading a book or watching webinars or courses for example.
So my next goal is to make a new habit with “slow” dopamine. I hope it will help me feel better in the mornings and receive more long-term positive emotions without craving for new ones from social media.
P.S. I’m not a native English speaker so feel free to point out any mistakes in my texts.
