Your cell phone: Your lifeline... or?

Our mobiles, our cell phones. I can take or leave mine to be honest. But what about you? Are you a prisoner to your phone? Probably... that’s why they are called cell phones.

I can hear some of you now, saying “Don’t give up your day job Ray.” But seriously. Did you know, for instance, that we get a release of dopamine when something good happens to us, and that for most of us, one of those times is when our mobile phones ring?

Those infamous ‘men in white coats’ have revealed that dopamine, a monoamine neurotransmitter in the brain, is a virtual ‘chemical messenger,’ linking the brain, nerve cells, and body. It is often referred to as the ‘feelgood factor,’ in most of our lives, and small amounts are released to us when we experience pleasure, thereby leading us to repeat whatever gives us the same ‘feelgood’ outcomes, whatever makes us feel good.

In terms of social media and mobile use, there is an identified process by where phone and social media users, who predominantly communicate with friends, and about ‘good’ things, anticipate seeing and hearing the ‘ping’ notifications, the likes, and comments, on their media devices.

In action, a user will post something, maybe a pic, maybe a status update, a ‘like,’ or respond to someone else’s post. Feeling good about doing so gives one their initial ‘shot’ of dopamine, and anticipating responses, another. Subsequent posts, responses, and comments can offer hundreds of further ‘shots’ from what is scientifically recognised as the brain’s unique reward system.

This creates a continuous cycle, a ‘Short Time Dopamine Feedback Loop,’ that creates pleasant, ‘Pavlovian’ responses, themselves triggering an almost perpetually heightened state of ‘readiness,’ for the next interaction, and we are encouraged to stay engaged with our phones by that ‘good’ feeling.

What we know, thanks to the researchers, is that the media giants, mobile device manufacturers, industry ‘techies,’ and web and app developers, have become not only aware of the dopamine phenomenon, but that many of their modern-day device specifications are engineered to capitalise on it, and to drive even greater consumer use through a sometimes compulsive need to keep checking, scrolling, posting, and responding to a global market of similarly ‘captured,’ cell phone users.

Seeking to capitalise on the phenomenon, TikTok’s owners, the Bytedance Investment Consortium, is mainly Chinese, and has already invested in significant dopamine research, and is rumoured to be working on algorithm enhanced content to keep users engaged, while others are looking at gambling style activities and rewards to push cell phone users to even continuous engagement.

The question being asked is... Could this lead to a form of addiction for even wider exploitation by media companies? Given their voracious appetites, is it also only a matter of time before advertising agencies develop specific techniques to enable engagement with users, ‘piggy-backing’ on the dopamine rush to sell their products? There are those who will ask... “What’s the problem? So, it makes me feel good. So, I spend a bit more time on my phone? So, what?

And they may have a point. For all of us, what’s the harm, and what harm can it do? I guess the reality is that in moderation, very few things can do any harm. Modest amounts of anything we find appealing rewards us in fascinating, almost intangible ways. Yet, unfortunately, excesses can lead to issues of obesity, dependency, and worse.

The dopamine phenomenon has the potential to adversely affect productivity through the workforce being distracted or disengaged from their duties. There could be far reaching economic consequences too, with users spending more time on their devices, costing them more. Users could also be drawn into a spending frenzy, so as to make George Orwell’s 1984 a comparatively comfortable read.

Maybe, just maybe... Far from being the ‘lifeline’ that the media would have you believe. Your cell phone will eventually imprison you in a way that you could never have envisaged... Or more scarily, that someone else... did!