I mean you mentioned uh pornography right pornography is a is a late uh human evolution invention right there weren't even screens you know that is leveraging the heart the biology of reward chemicals that were designed for reproduction for for sex and and putting them into a format where people are getting this the chemical release without um without reproduction right without the standard reproduction we probably don't want to go too far down that pathway but I think it's obvious to your listeners what what I mean here is that it's a technology that hijacks the biology okay that doesn't mean it's wrong I'm not here to make moral judgments I'm um although there are some some data that excessive pornography can can have negative effects on the reward systems of the brain so let's talk about those so the reward systems of the brain are mainly centered around two chemicals the chemicals are dopamine and serotonin there are others of course there's the endogenous opioid system these are opioids that don't come in the pill form but that you make your in your brain there's the cannabinoid system that you make neurons that make cannabinoids and so forth but dopamine is really the the main player and serotonin is the other main player and it's it's pretty straightforward there's a great book on this if people want to check it out called the molecule of more but the I didn't write the book but um it's quite good that dopamine is famous for its role in reward and addiction because it is indeed the molecule that's released in our brains and that makes us feel really good when we um win a trophy get a degree um mate eat when we're hungry uh drink water when we're thirsty it's Nature's Way of rewarding us for the for a behavior but what a lot of people don't realize is that dopamine is also secreted in substantial amounts as we anticipate rewards in route to those rewards not just once we obtain those rewards and and at its core if you put those two facts together that it's released in route to goals and when we reach those goals at its core dopamine's job is to move us towards specific goals and things that are outside our immediate presence they're not everything that's beyond the reach of our arms right so a goal a year from now a goal a week from now even you know what I'm hungry I'm going to go into the kitchen and I'm going to make some food it's a goal that's outside what I have contained within the confines of my skin serotonin and a hormone close to it a hormone neurochemical called oxytocin are sort of the opposite those are the rewards that are released and make us feel good with what we have right there and then a sense of gratitude a relationship to somebody that's already built a a bond that's already established okay and really healthy individuals learn to control they set up their life in a way where the dopamine system and the serotonin system are both active although typically not at the same time so the pursuit of all goals is what dopamine is in driving it's like a jet Thruster that puts us off in a specific Direction and when we think we're headed in the right direction we reach a milestone we score a goal we um finish an exam we uh you know we reach our gate at the airport at least we used to when we were traveling this kind of thing we we get a little dopamine release and it says it reinforces that we're on the right path the seroton and so dopamine tends to mobilize us just like stress tends to mobilize us but it gives it a positive attribute okay this is very much what's active during foraging of accounts on Instagram when you're looking and you're getting a lot of Novel information dopamines looking for new stuff and asking uh the dopamine system is looking for new stuff and asking is that new stuff provide providing me what I want and it and then if you get likes or you see something that that's that you know that you enjoy uh whatever that is to you you'll you'll click it um the in the in the example of pornography then it's it's you know it's designed to tap into these systems at a very sort of deep what we call limbic level the circuitry of the brain that's very primitive um all those Technologies are based on that the serotonin system is what you feel when you are content with what you've got and it tends to create unlike dopamine which promotes a sense of movement or desire for more that's why it's called the molecule of more I didn't call it that but someone else did serotonin is more about a pleasure with things in the here and now and it actually tends to make us feel calm it tends to make us feel content with where we are and that's why drugs Pharmaceuticals that are antidepressants that are called ssris they selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors their net effect is to increase serotonin if they have side effects and some of them have side effects if they have side effects they tend to be side effects of lack of appetite lack of libido lack of Drive things like that because serotonin is artificially elevated and so people are content to stay where they're at now they also can have under the right conditions positive effects for people suffering from depression and various anxiety disorders so I don't want to um knock on them but that's just their General effect but you could contrast those drugs with drugs like amphetamine and cocaine which strongly stimulate the dopamine system and people on amphetamine and cocaine are not happy with anything that they have in the here and now it's all about more and more and more and everything that's outside them so I'm going to put these two um systems the dopamine and the serotonin system together for you and explain that when you are engaging in a behavior over and over and over and you're attending to it yes the neurons are firing together and therefore are going to wire together but that whole process is Amplified tenfold a hundred fold when you throw dopamine into the mix so when you throw dopamine into the mix there's a much higher probability that those circuits are going to wire up really fast and that you're going to therefore want to repeat those behaviors it's like taking gravel roads and making them smooth roads and then if you get a little more reward it's like making that taking that smooth Road and making it a Formula One Track and then it's like putting and that's like putting another two cylinders in the engine so pretty soon what we find is neuroplasticity has done its job and you're engaging in behaviors and you're not even sure that you want to engage in those behaviors but you feel compelled to do them so what you've removed is the self-directed component it felt self-directed at the beginning but what we didn't realize is that our choices were being leveraged by the dopamine system and then pretty soon what we realize is there's plasticity but it wasn't self-directed and in some cases it wasn't adaptive and so the task then becomes to to attach reward to the disengagement from those Technologies the disengagement from those behaviors and I'll just mention addiction because I do Define and um you got the the quote exactly right I call addiction a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure because it Taps into this dopamine system so now that statement perhaps we'll make some um neurobiological sense why that's the case so there's a narrowing of attention more reinforcement for those behaviors and we need to think about any Behavior drinking water foraging on the Internet or drugs of abuse as potentially addictive but the difference is we have to ask the difference among those behaviors is what is their propensity for them to keep the Baseline of our life meaning our relationships our relationship to self our physical health our mental health flat or to decrease it send it down on a pitch or to improve it I have to drink a lot of water before the Baseline of My Life Starts to suffer I could do it I could kill myself drinking too much water I could avoid relationships I could you know lose my job from drinking too much water but I have to drink a lot of water you don't have to do a lot of heroin or a lot of cocaine before the Baseline on your life starts to really decline with Technologies like the internet and smartphones and computers it's neither here nor there you have some activities on the internet now are allowing us the social engagement That We crave and need and that's healthy and that we can't get by you know having dinners and things like that with other groups right now but it has the potential because it's the landscape there is so vast that there are many behaviors inside of these devices that can send the Baseline of our life going down especially if we start to do this into the midnight hours and at 4 a.m and we're texting and looking at Instagram at 4am now you can really say well sleep is is getting injured and Immunity is getting injured my ability to think clearly and make plans during the day is being injured and now you could look at that behavior and say you know what you're the things that bring me pleasure are becoming progressively narrower and my the Baseline in my life is going down and therefore this qualifies as a an addiction by all by all definitions but it doesn't have to be that way the key is the self-directed part we all are each in control role of our Behavior even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it and if we understand these reward systems and we start attaching reward to not just avoiding certain behaviors but to new behaviors in their place reading a book a face-to-face conversation with a spouse playing with your child or your dog and or your cat for the cat lovers out there the the the ability to just attend to things and be away from these devices and at first they might not feel as exciting they may not feel as Dopey dopamine stimulating but over time they will and they can wire our brain and our nervous system in the other direction too so that we have this balance and this balance not just with the dopamine system and where what it's devoted to but also the serotonin system and that's where things like gratitude really become powerful I want to emphasize gratitude is not complacency gratitude is the stimulation of these positive neural chemicals and that stimulation of those neurochemicals will allow you to then lean back into other activities with more Vigor and more positivity so it's not new AG science it's it's chemical biology