In other words, a neural pathway made to ensure humans go seek out water when they're thirsty is now being used to keep my 7-year-old watching yet another episode of a cartoon. "And what does dopamine do? It tells you something important is happening, and there's a need somewhere that you have to answer."Īnd what am I doing? I'm preventing her from fulfilling this need, which her brain may elevate as being critical to her survival. "The dopamine levels are still high," Samaha explains. Close the app and get ready for bed." And although I'm ready for Rosy to quit watching, her brain isn't. Then I come into the room and say, "Time's up, Rosy. Those spikes keep her watching (even if she's actually really tired and wants to go to bed). While she's staring into the technicolor images, her brain experiences spikes in dopamine, over and over again. What does this all mean for your kids? Say my daughter, who's now 7 years old, is watching cartoons after dinner. "In fact, there's a lot of evidence that it's quite the opposite, that you end up feeling worse after than before." "If you talk to people who spend a lot of time shopping online or, going through social media, they don't necessarily feel good after doing it," Samaha says. In fact, studies show that over time, people can end up not liking the activities that trigger big surges in dopamine. "That's relatively irrelevant to dopamine," Samaha says. That's what dopamine does."Īnd here's the surprising part: You might not even like the activity that triggers the dopamine surge. "So you should stay here, close to this thing, because there's something here for you to learn. It's alerting you to something important, Samaha says. It's all about motivation.Īnd it goes even further: Dopamine tells your brain to pay particular attention to whatever triggers the surge.
A surge of dopamine in your brain makes you seek out something, she explains. "Dopamine makes you want things," Samaha says. Instead, studies now show that dopamine primarily generates another feeling: desire. Shots - Health News The truth about teens, social media and the mental health crisis They can also cause much conflict between parents and children.
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They shape our habits, our diets, our mental health and how we spend our free time. Although drugs cause much bigger spikes of dopamine than, say, social media or an ice cream cone, these smaller spikes still influence our behavior, especially in the long run. Turns out, smartphones and sugary foods do have something in common with drugs: They trigger surges of a neurotransmitter deep inside your brain called dopamine.
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Personally, I call the strategy "anti-dopamine parenting" because the ideas come from learning how to counter a tiny, powerful molecule that's essential to nearly everything we do. And that understanding offers powerful insights into how parents can better manage and limit these activities. In the past few years, neuroscientists have started to better understand what's going on in kids' brains (and adult brains, too) while they're streaming cartoons, playing video games, scrolling through social media, and eating rich, sugar-laden foods. I do that because they give me pleasure, right?)īut what if those assumptions are wrong? What if my daughter's reactions aren't a sign of loving the activity or the food? And that, in fact, over time she may even come to dislike these activities despite her pleas to continue? (To be honest, I feel the same way about my own "addictions," like checking social media and email more than a hundred times a day. And thus, I felt really guilty about taking these pleasures away from her. I assumed that they brought her immense joy and pleasure. Given these intense reactions to screens and sweets, I assumed that my daughter loves them. And as she grew older, another craving set in: cartoons on my computer.Įvery night, when it was time to turn off the screen and get ready for bed, I would hear an endless stream of "But Mamas." "But Mama, just five more minutes. She had the same reaction to cupcakes and ice cream at birthday parties. "You can't even show it to her without causing a tantrum." It is also part of the reason it is so hard to stop playing a video game or pass up a cupcake.īack when my daughter was a toddler, I would make a joke about my phone: "It's a drug for her," I'd say to my husband. Dopamine is part of an ancient neural pathway that ensures human survival.
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