Dopamine Detox: Withdrawing From Digital Addiction
Log off and enjoy the world outside of your screens. The beauty of life is passing you by.
We are in the digital era. Everything around us is a cyber-stimulus.
The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was check my phone. Then I got up, made a bowl of cereal, and sat in front of my laptop.
A few hours later, I took a short walk in the park while listening to a Spotify playlist my friend recommended.
This evening, I browsed social media, followed up on emails, FaceTimed my brother, and now I’m writing this article. All while sitting in front of the blaring TV.
We’ve become so technology-dependent that we might as well call ourselves digital addicts.
Silicon Valley is brainwashing us
The tech industry is no longer interested in programming computer algorithms like they all want us to believe. They’ve found a new, oblivious, vulnerable, and profitable target to exploit — they’re programming us.
The average person between ages 16–64 spends about 6 hours of screen time daily.
That’s equivalent to 2,190 hours or roughly 3 months per year.
3 months a year! Say that out loud to yourself and see how crazy that really sounds. If you live another 50 years doing this, you would be spending approximately 12.5 years in the digital world.
Imagine living 3 months of every year of your life staring at a manufactured screen. Let’s put this into perspective;
According to the Foreign Service Language Training program, you can learn French and Spanish fluently in around 600–750 hours.
Training for a half-marathon takes the average person 12 weeks, assuming you practice 3–5 times a week. That’s roughly 2,016 hours or 3 months.
When information like this is displayed in this way, you understand how much time you have at your disposal and how much of it is going to waste.
But don’t feel bad because it’s not your fault.
Tech companies design their products to be “sticky”. They want us to get hooked on their gadgets for as long as they can through dopamine hits — likes, comments, DMs, emails, promos, updates, you name it.
Every time your device lights up with a new notification, it reinforces your habit of staying on the screen and checking back again and again… and again.
The same way slot machines work at a casino.
This wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t already know how detrimental these devices are to both our mental and physical well-being, with sleep, concentration, and productivity being the worst hit.
If we want to take back control of our brains, then we need to rebalance our screen time activity.
The dopamine theory of addiction
Think of the last time you had a dopamine rush. Maybe it came from an online shopping spree or maybe it was seeing your paycheck hit your bank account.
It’s that irresistible flood of pleasure that engulfs you for a brief moment.
But some of what you’ve heard about addiction may be more myth than fact.
The dopamine theory of addiction suggests that an imbalance in dopamine production in the brain mediates reward and leads to addiction.
Instead of producing dopamine from everyday activities, individuals suffering from some kind of addiction rely on cheap, external stimuli to replace it. Drugs and alcohol used to be the usual culprits, but with new-age stimulants on the rise, we’re now seeing addiction in video games, streaming pornography, and social media.
The more addicted the individual is to their stimuli, the more they will require to feel satisfied.
According to a dopamine research article by Melis et al. (2005),
“Decreased DA (dopamine) function in addicted subjects results in a decreased interest to non-drug-related stimuli and increased sensitivity to the drug of choice.”
This and The dopamine theory of addiction propose that dopamine plays a central role in addiction to stimulants. With research backing the claim that dopamine is the driver behind addictive actions, it is no wonder why the tech industry is succeeding at influencing people’s screen addictions.
They’re exploiting our dopamine.
What is a dopamine detox?
You’ve probably heard of this before. It’s the hot buzzword roaming through ‘productivity maximization’ circles. Here’s the science behind it.
A dopamine detox (also known as dopamine fasting), is a method of abstaining from all addictive activities that raise your dopamine levels too high.
The whole idea behind it is to detox yourself from overusing your electronic devices. You abstain from the instant hits and replace them with other external activities to help balance your dopamine levels again.
Popularized a few years ago by Dr. Cameron Sepah, his approach was initially intended to help Silicon Valley tech workers and venture capitalists control their dependency/addiction to their devices.
But it quickly took off and became a viral sensation on social media.
Dr. Sepah states that the dopamine detox targets 6 key areas:
- Gambling and shopping
- Porn and masturbation
- Excessive internet usage and gaming
- Emotional eating
- Recreational drugs and alcohol
- Thrill and novelty-seeking
Does it work?
I remember the moment I realized I was addicted to my phone. About a year and a half ago, my roommate, Ali, and I were sitting in the living area of our 3-bedroom apartment.
We just had dinner and were about to rewatch Prison Break on Netflix. But before that, we got into a small dispute that went something like this;
Ali: Can I see your phone? I’m curious about something.
Me: What for?
Ali: I just want to see something.
Me: Okay, but what do you want to see?
Ali: I want to see your daily activity
I didn’t think too much of it so I gave my phone to him. I was confident that there was nothing wrong with how I used my phone, and I had nothing to hide either.
But when he saw my ‘time spent’ on Instagram, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
“4 hours?! You’ve spent 4 hours on Instagram today? That’s what I spend in a week!”
I tried to justify myself by making excuses, claiming I was skirting boredom and that this wasn’t my regular pastime. But the more I explained myself, the more ridiculous I felt.
Who was I really lying to? Myself.
That night, I was about to Google ‘What is a phone addiction?’ before I realized how absurd that would be. If I needed to confirm that I was an addict, then clearly I was an addict.
As I turned off the light and closed my eyes, I promised myself I would put an end to the unhealthy relationship I had with my phone and the time-sapping apps behind its screen.
“The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free”― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
To beat my phone addiction, I decided to try and live out a whole month without social media. I would only use it for the bare necessities.
So on my first day, I deleted all my social apps: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok (I kept WhatsApp to keep in touch with my family).
Over the next few days, the urges were real and unbearable, I won’t lie.
There were times when I would finish a task at work and then automatically feel the compulsion to pull out my phone and award myself with some social treats, only to remember I was on a social media sabbatical.
Slightly perturbed and annoyed, I’d put my phone back down and find something else to do.
After about a week, the withdrawal symptoms started subsiding and eventually fell flat.
Without social media, I’ve been able to be more present. I find myself reading books, cooking new dishes, walking in the park, and getting amazing sleep at night.
Had I not decided to take on this journey, I would be mindlessly scrolling through DIY videos on TikTok right now instead of writing this piece.
3 tips for your dopamine detox
A dopamine detox won’t decrease your natural levels of dopamine. It merely rebalances them to reduce behaviors associated with cravings, impulsivity, and addiction.
1. Create barriers
According to Dr. Sepah,
“We ARE NOT fasting from dopamine itself, but from impulsive behaviors reinforced by it.”
A detox involves making an undesirable habit difficult to engage in. This can go down in a few ways;
- Put the device out of reach or out of sight
- Make it inconvenient
- Don’t associate with others actively engaged in the habit
- Give someone else control over your bad habit to hold you accountable
2. Find off-screen alternatives
Once you’ve made the habit undesirable, the next step is to replace that habit with a better, healthier off-screen alternative.
Instead of reaching for the phone or the video game controller whenever you have a window of free time, try taking a short walk around your workspace, reading two pages of your novel, or chatting with your friends or coworkers.
The idea is to get you back into the real, natural world so that you reset your dopamine levels and curb your addiction.
3. Embrace boredom and loneliness
Dopamine detoxing is intended to encourage us to sit with uncomfortable feelings like boredom and loneliness instead of seeking quick relief through addictive behaviors.
I used to hate doing things that didn’t give me instant gratification. College was a drag; 3-hour lectures, tedious assignments, and long hours of studying were no fun at all. Many times I’d have my phone with me for no reason other than to get rid of boredom when it strikes.
I had to learn to be bored and alone again.
Once you accept that you don’t need to be entertained constantly, you learn to find some enjoyment in even the most tedious things.
Criticisms and misconceptions of dopamine detox
As with any emerging trend, many have misunderstood the meaning behind dopamine detoxing.
Somewhere along the line, the original intention got lost in translation among the wave of extremists, trend-followers, and “hypebeasts” who only seek to overdo the practice for views and likes. Here’s an example of a YouTuber who went on a dopamine detox for 48 hours which included fasting and complete isolation from the world.
These fads are so excessive that they range from monastic to downright masochistic; a woman once tweeted about an encounter with someone who said he couldn’t talk for long lest he breaks his dopamine fast.
While many have accepted the practice, some remain skeptical of it, claiming that complete abstinence from stimulating tasks may not be necessary or practical in today’s interconnected world.
Others suggest that moderation and setting healthy boundaries around the consumption of digital media may be a more sustainable approach.
Furthermore, studies on dopamine detoxing are limited. So, additional scientific research may be needed to validate its effectiveness and long-term impact.
Read next —