Does too much internet/screen time cause high serotonin/dopamine?
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like twitter, IG & so on
im a chronic user & addicted (hard to stay away even when i want to) of these all day for a long time, is this worsening my mental health? i have social anxiety and difficulty staying motivated to do my studies -
@AndrewPeatMatrix yeah but it depends how much. I work 8,h + 2h on my phone and I don't feel unmotivated. It all depends on what you eat. Meat will make me stoic, milk the opposite.
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I believe it does but if you don't replace screentime with anything you enjoy then I think you make matters worse.
Maybe try replacing it with reading fascinating books. Try unplugging your computer and putting it away when you don't use it doesn't feel as much as an option. If you are able to, experiment with not having your mobile phone on you.
I recently did a similar experiment where I put my phone away and didn't touch it for 2 weeks and felt myself open up to the world a bit more.
If possible, find interesting environments to study in. Coffee shop can be a cozy place.
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Yes absolutely, I've been there.
I wrote a big post about it here: https://bioenergetic.forum/topic/925/defanging-your-computer
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@Milk-Destroyer That's good advice that you have to replace it. I bet socializing is the replacement the brain craves. That and general outside exploratory stimulation, even just taking a drive in the car.
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We're really in dire straits if we're talking about "high serotonin / dopamine" on a website dedicated to Bioenergetics and called the 'Bioenergetic Forum".
For shame.
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https://bioenergetic.forum/topic/1355/solutions-to-excessive-smartphone-usage?_=1711402838095
check out this topic on practical solutions to excessive smartphone usage.
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@AndrewPeatMatrix Starting out your day with social media already ruins your whole day. You brain works on different wavelengths. Scrolling sets it into a highly alert one and its hard to get down from that into a calm one where you can read/do meaningful work etc. (same for music and videos and all that stuff)
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@AndrewPeatMatrix I will make a big thread on everything I do for better attention span. I havent read up on dopamine in the ray peat sphere yet, but Im pretty much against raising it (especially with something like coffee). You should get your dopamine hits through doing stuff that is positive for you like learning, working, reading, art whatever.
But I want to make sure I know the peat sphere perspective so I can defend my arguments.
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@insufferable Yes, real life socialising is probably one of the best things when people aren't using their phones. I don't attend bars or clubs so I can't speak for those who do but finding new friends outside of school/work can be very daunting for most I think.
Last year I had the chance to go wild camping for a week with 4 friends from highschool and it was very fun, even just sitting at a campfire and talking is incredibly stimulating in a positive way I think.
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@Milk-Destroyer said in Does too much internet/screen time cause high serotonin/dopamine?:
@insufferable Yes, real life socialising is probably one of the best things when people aren't using their phones. I don't attend bars or clubs so I can't speak for those who do but finding new friends outside of school/work can be very daunting for most I think.
Last year I had the chance to go wild camping for a week with 4 friends from highschool and it was very fun, even just sitting at a campfire and talking is incredibly stimulating in a positive way I think.
That sounds like a great time.
It's daunting now but it used to be easy. It's easy in a healthy society. There's stats showing americans used to have double or more as many close friends 30 years ago compared to recently.
It's a vicious cycle, less friends and more screen time = sad brain. Sad brain = harder to spend time with friends and more time coping on the screen. And then if everyone around you has the sad brain too, the problem compounds. Very bad
Thank you to all the epic big thinkers who destroyed society. -
It can cut off blood flow to the front part of the brain, a lot like how wheat does. Scary stuff to read about man. Sometimes just the blood flow in the brain can make differences to how you think, more so than neurotransmitters