I have heard stuff like dopamine desensitization but was never explained properly about what actually happens inside the brain.
I am interested in knowing what happens inside the brain, the neurobiological stuff (sorry if I used the wrong word)
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So think of something that you love like Ice Cream the first time you have it’s the most amazing thing ever. But the more Ice Cream you eat the less it satisfies you so you eat more and more and want to try different flavours to chase that original feeling. So you end up eating entire tubs of Ice Cream just to feel satisfied and when you aren’t eating Ice Cream you are thinking about Ice Cream.
TikTok isn’t “highly stimulating”. If you were to ask the average TikTok viewer (and were assured of an honest answer) they would say most of the videos they watch are utter trash that is occasionally punctuated by something worth watching. All it’s doing is keeping your mind occupied with drivel, which isn’t likely to change your brain chemistry in any way, except maybe varying degrees of depression that tend to follow such empty pursuits.
Your brain neurons have a bunch of receptors. Dopamine is an excitatory transmitter. Dopamine excites the neuron and nearby neurons.
Too much dopamine is damaging to the neuron so the neuron has to down regulate, i.e. it closes off some of the receptors. This leads to needing a bigger hit to get the same feeling as before. This is called tolerance.
When you continue to take bigger hits to get the pleasurable feeling, eventually the neuron dies. This is called addiction.
Conversely there is serotonin which is inhibitory. Serotonin inhibits the neuron and its neighbors. This gives you feelings of contentment.
This is what makes the difference between pleasure and happiness, dopamine and serotonin.
Imagine your brain is like a happy button that gets pushed when you see fun and exciting things, like watching TikTok. This button releases a special juice called dopamine that makes you feel super happy. But if you keep pushing the button too much, your brain might get used to it and not feel as happy anymore. It’s like eating too much candy – your tummy might not like it after a while. So, watching lots of exciting stuff can make your brain want even more exciting stuff to feel happy, and that might make it a bit harder to enjoy regular things like playing outside or reading a book.
Long term, nothing of note.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66424770
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56970368
From what I can see, most mentions of dopamine (even in the answers) are used as a euphemism for a drug-like addictive effect. This is not accurate, as while dopamine appears to be crucial for pleasure, does not by itself produce a pleasurable sensation. Nor does providing someone with dopaminergic agents automatically result in addiction. Furthermore, dopamine is responsible for many essential functions in the brain.
Your brain uses a lot of information to decide whether what happens after we do something is valuable. If it decides that it is, dopamine is released which helps the brain draw a connection between what you did and what happened next. That means we learn that doing what we did again will get us more of that valuable thing (this isn’t always something that is pleasurable). The more times it happens, the stronger that learning is and the more often we will do that again.
Because TikTok videos are short, immediate and the more you use it the more likely that it shows you a video that you’ll like, those are things that the brain finds valuable. If you imagine that the brain is always comparing different options for what you should do next, the value of using the app is higher than for example doing homework or making dinner(except when the deadline is two hours away, or when you’re starving). So more often than not, you’ll just keep scrolling instead of switching to doing something else. There are strategies and interventions that can help overcome this, but some people will need more help than others.
Nothing, it’s just a way for the older folk to complain about younger folk. They said the same thing about books.
personally I think you pick up a preference for short bursts of concentration. I have noticed that I dont like reading long passages of writing. I much prefer having a question to answer, and then finding the answer within seconds, then moving onto the next thing. It causes problems at work when I am sometimes required to read large pieced of boring text and I find it a very painful process
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