Are you addicted to gadgets?

If you Google “gadget addiction” you will find scores of articles about the modern addiction to gadgets. This addiction extends to social media, the news and online gaming. In one article a woman dumped her boyfriend because he refused to have a Facebook account. Something has gone terribly wrong since technology rather than be liberating has enslaved human beings. Smart phones are supposed to be tools to help process and communicate information, but they have now become objects that entrap, control and divide the individual from self, people and nature.

Most people are unable to let go of their gadgets, social media and the need for news. People are addicted, the hormone dopamine is behind this addiction. A study of rats implanted with electrodes shows they will press a lever that causes stimulation of their pleasure centre of their brain until they die of exhaustion, they won’t rest, look after their pups or eat. Like the rats the human has become addicted to a lever of gadgets, social media and news thanks to dopamine.

Dopamine in balance motivates people to explore the world to obtain rewards such as food and sex. Although dopamine rewards the self for obtaining food or other goal, it has the second function of motivating goal seeking in order to obtain the reward. Dopamine is behind most addictions like gambling or Facebook because it is motivating the individual to seek out the lever then press it. The narcotic cocaine is a vicious drug in that it will create a cascade of dopamine which can entrap the individual in addiction in one night. On a lesser scale gadgets, social media and the news is feeding into the exact same dopamine pathways with milder consequences as cocaine does.

Every like, friending or update creates a spike of dopamine in the human brain. The human becomes addicted to these dopamine spikes and need more regular stimulation. People are unable to put down their gadgets, they get withdrawal symptoms from being away from