The Smartphone Effect (And Why We ’re All Addicted)

You're reading The Smartphone Effect (And Why We’re All Addicted), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you're enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles. Most of us know the tug of a new SMS message or a notification from Facebook which comes with the ever-present smartphone.  But most of us don’t know – until it’s taken away – how powerful that tug really is.  I recently left my phone in the Athens airport: for at least a few weeks, I went to sleep without a phone beside me. I was surprised by how potently I felt the difference.  The itch to check just one more app became defunct.  There were only two choices once in bed – read, or drift off to sleep.  No frittering away an hour in the morning or before bed.   Usually the resolution to read before bed – which I genuinely love – gives way to watching Husky videos.  Even after putting the phone down, smartphones haunt sleep, exciting the brain and sending an explosion of stimuli. Smartphones and the Brain Checking your smartphone releases an onslaught of neurotransmitters called dopamine.  Dopamine is responsible for desire – not pleasure or reward.  The result?  The powerful urge to check your phone, without ever feeling satisfied by it. In 1953, James Olds and Peter Milner, two young scientists at McGill University, implanted electrodes in a rat’s brain.  Though they didn’t know it at the time, they had hit on the part...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: communication featured internet culture psychology self improvement addiction cell phones digital detox health pickthebrain smartphone effect Source Type: blogs