And when you act to reward that desire or satiate that desire your brain then releases the endorphins which are pleasurable and rewarding.

Unfortunately, some specific characteristics of social media can abuse our dopamine system.

So here’s some of them.

As you immerse yourself in this dopamine triggering stimuli, your brain begins to anticipate them even before they happen.
And this is why you sometimes feel a kind of social media withdrawal, a compulsive need to check social media if you’ve gone too long without any dopamine triggers. You get incomplete gratification.

Although the likes and tweets feel like they’re rewarding, they’re only slightly so you’re never fully satisfied.
You have to keep going, that job isn’t done.

You can’t completely check Facebook, because by the time you’ve checked all your notifications, they are pretty much back, you’ve got another one or there’s a different social media platform to check …or then there’s the email and then when you get back again, there’s more Facebook notifications, it never actually finishes.

The brain also releases dopamine when something unexpected happens.

And since notifications and alerts are entirely unpredictable, they trigger the dopamine that keeps you hooked.

One of our basic human needs is security and stability, predictability, but we also need unpredictable stimuli.

It that’s kind of annoying that we need both … and social media gives us literally both of those.

So all of this put together amounts to something called:

…which is a bit scary sounding.
Like most addictions, alcohol, cigarettes, it takes hold of you long before you realise it even exists.

So it started probably for you back in 2007 with the creation of a Facebook account that you might have checked weekly,
and then every five days, every three days, daily… you put the mobile app on.

Today we’re hit with notifications multiple times per hour, sometimes per minute.
Your brain’s dopamine system strengthens requiring more and more of that stimulation but less and less reward.

Eventually, you’re waking up in the night to check if you’ve received any new likes or messages or follows.

This might not be you, this might be more dramatic than you but you might recognise some of this.

That dopamine hit wires your brain to make you want to do it again.
It teaches your brain that’s how you get happy.

like a teen being removed from a WhatsApp group, blocked or not allowed.
When our amygdala was formed in prehistoric times, being part of the group and not shunned was actually essential for survival.

And those ancient responses still override our conscious processing now.

Your brain reacts to it like it would any other basic human need.

And that’s why we treat it the same way as other more obviously harmful addictions.

Let’s say you are addicted to social media.

Is that such a terrible problem?

Are you still getting to work, getting stuff done, completing your course – or whatever it is that you’re doing,

you taking care of yourself, it’s not like you’re addicted to cocaine or heroin, right?

And that’s true all things considered.

It’s, I suppose, one of the safest addictions that you could have.

No one, I don’t think has ever died from it.

But what about the quality of your life, which is the very thing that we are concerned with.

So social media does encourage narcissism,
one of the biggest rewards is when you post something, that somebody likes it.

So on Reddit (that I love) is upvotes, on Twitter and Tumblr is retweets and reblogs.
Facebook, it’s likes and shares.

It’s all about your own satisfaction and gratification.

You chase more and more of those likes, you can get swallowed up in yourself.

We all are aware of the Instagram phenomenon and I think most of us are aware of what it’s doing to our young people.

The nature of it means you can follow those who are like you and ignore those who aren’t without getting into politics.

We’ve seen exactly that happen recently.

And while some people are shocked when they see someone with diametrically opposed political opinion to them, it’s not surprising because actually, in terms of Facebook and Twitter, that is all they will have seen.

It’s the very definition of an echo chamber.

Everyone just parrots the same ideas back at one another.

It’s not good for critical thinking or unbiased viewpoints on the world.

AIf you’re not aware of that effect, social media can turn you into a somewhat closed-minded version of yourself.

It’s a false reality, people selectively post what they want others to see.

And this allows everyone to flaunt their good sides while holding back their bad ones.

Nobody’s profile truly reflects who they are as a person.

And unfortunately, even though cognitively we know this,
subconsciously, we tend to forget this.

And we can fall into a sense of sadness, that we can’t seem to keep up with the supposed lives of our peers.

Very often, even to the point of low-lying depression.

Social media and this is the thing that we are most concerned with, sucks up your time.

So a visit to my favourite Reddit can turn into two hours.

I’ve had to take off my phonetwo hours of mindless browsing.

Checking Facebook or Twitter might not take long but if you do that several times an hour that can add up to a lot of wasted time.

So we’ve already looked at the things that you might do with the time that you save if it were a creative hobby, hiking, personal growth, some learning, the happiness that you would feel from that.

Going to Zumba, going for a swim.

You know, when you look at your audit, that actually gives you more happiness.
Most people put the neutral face when it came to social media.

Very few people filled the time that they spend on that with smiley faces.

So if you’re not sure if you’re addicted to social media,

and if your audit has shown you that you already just spend too much time, this is an area worth addressing.

We think it won’t always be but I think we are at a unique time where things online have gone very much more out of control than the research has caught up with the harmful effects.

What gets people through rehab is a vision and goal that they will be a useful, productive and helpful person at the end of it.

Addicts are put somewhere where they have no access to the things that they want to give up.

We’re not going to be that dramatic.

We’re going to take steps towards limiting it to the time we would have chosen to spend on it.

So if it’s an hour a day, that you would choose to spend on social media,

then we put the mechanisms in place and we’ll get to that.

Addicts in rehab have the basics covered of good food, exercise, meaningful activity, sleeping well, reflection,

and dealing with the stuff they were trying to avoid by using whichever substance or activity was their addiction.

Taking the apps off your phone,
so you have to log in is one small step you can take to make things easier for you to keep away.

Considering using a different messenger service
…for people you actually want to talk to than the one that you normally do.

So whether it’s WhatsApp, Voxer, remember the 80-20 rule of people that you actually want to talk to.

You can install a limiter too!

Bring it home, put it on charge in that room, maybe the spare room, out of sight and out of mind.

So these are the list of things you put a smiley face against.

Can you add this to the fun wish list?

When you get to the end of the task list, the brain hates a vacuum, you need to put different things in place of that thing that you used to do.

Giving yourself much less of a hard time than some of you have been doing about it.

You’ll find that you can more easily train yourself away from that habitual response that you’ve had and take control of it and schedule things that you want to do in terms of social media to work for you and have your phone work for you rather than the other way around.