Dopamine Detox : a short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things

Your dopamine neurotransmitters are being hijacked
Your focus is a scarce asset, which is why marketers spend billions
of dollars to attract your attention. Many apps are designed to hook
you. Social media companies like YouTube, Facebook, and
Instagram know that the more time you spend on their platforms, the
more money they make through advertising. Perhaps one of their
greatest recent discoveries is the use of notifications. How many
times have you opened an app just because a red notification pops
up on your screen? And how much time did you waste
subsequently? I wouldn’t be surprised if it ran into hundreds of hours
each year.
And, thanks to ever more sophisticated algorithms, companies have
become better at hooking us. Amazon’s book recommendation
system is more accurate and widespread than any system a physical
bookstore could create. Likewise, YouTube suggestions are heavily
customized. And Facebook’s customer research algorithm is quite
amazing too. As a demonstration, try the following experiment:

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Visit your newsfeed, watch a couple of suggested videos on a similar
topic and see what happens. The other day I watched a basketball
video and immediately received a recommendation to view another
one, so I watched it. And then, I watched another one, and so on.
Now, the development of sophisticated algorithms has its pros and
cons. On the plus side, it becomes easier to discover content you
actually want to watch. On the negative side, it makes it easier to
become stuck in a never-ending loop, watching one video after the
other. In a sense, instead of using the internet to find information or
communicate with loved ones, the internet has become the one
using you. It does so by hijacking your focus and making you
unproductive and, as a result, restless.
Social media notifications are a great example of how your brain is
being hijacked. Whenever you see a notification, you anticipate the
reward you’ll receive when clicking on it, which triggers the release
of dopamine in your brain. However, this doesn’t make you happy or
fulfill you—at least not for long. Remember, dopamine is not a
pleasure chemical; it is a neurotransmitter that is activated when you
anticipate a potential pleasure. And that pleasure is usually
temporary. Below are some other ways your dopamine
neurotransmitters are being hijacked: