HealthyGamerGG - The REAL Effects of Internet Addiction

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Today Dr. K talks about internet addiction, giving up the use of the internet, feeling like you shouldn't have to quit, never having patience, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm addicted to this thing, but the alternative is cutting it out completely and then like, I'm going to be bored. You're asking me to be bored instead of having fun? I don't like being bored. Internet addiction is really hindering my life. As much as I try to delude myself into thinking the contrary, there is no doubt that I have a bit of an addiction to the internet. Whenever I try to complete important tasks in my life, such as studying, homework, or working

out, I'm easily distracted by YouTube videos and listening to music. even going as far as mindlessly scrolling the garbage content on Snapchat. It feels, however, that even though I'm aware of this problem, I don't know how or am not willing to fix it. I guess willpower isn't enough, but I shouldn't have to be completely, I shouldn't have to completely cut out access to my favorite apps or videos. Even in doing so, like joining the study channel here,

I get distracted and explore the rest of the server, looking into every text channel. This issue of technology addiction has been affecting my ability to enjoy life. I don't have real hobbies other than watching videos or TV. I never have the patience to read or learn an instrument or be active. The act of working out is such a large and time-consuming task to me because the whole time I'm distractedly watching videos. It takes up my whole day, and then it's my free time.

So, this is kind of an interesting thing. conundrum that many people fall into. We're addicted to technology. We're addicted to the internet. And if we want to approach this and understand this, I think there are a lot of really, really great key insights in this post that we're going to touch on one at a time. Okay? So let's take a look.

So the first thing that this person said, which I want to focus on, is that they're easy. distracted. So we're going to talk about how that happens and why that happens. The next thing, is I said something beautiful. Am not willing or am unable to quit. Okay? So this is really important. Next thing they say, this is really great. I shouldn't have to cut out my favorite So I want you all to understand this for a moment. It's really important. We shouldn't have to cut it out. There has to be a way for me to enjoy the internet without being addicted to the internet.

There's got to be a middle ground. It's unfair. I shouldn't have to cut it out. Why is life like this? Why can't I enjoy YouTube and be motivated to do things? Y'all get that? And then the last thing is I never have patience to do something. stuff. So let's unpack this, okay? So internet addiction and technology addiction is becoming

more and more common. And as we struggle with it, we realize, hey, this is a problem. This is a problem. I get so easily distracted. I get sucked into stuff for hours at a time. And I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know if it's like, there's a part of me that doesn't want to give it up or am I unable to give it up. I can't tell. Is this like an addiction or is this like unwillingness. And by the way, it's not fair that I should have to give it up. I shouldn't have to like be free from YouTube for the rest of my life. Like that doesn't sound fair. And I'm noticing that I don't have the patience to do stuff. So we're going to talk for a second about addiction. So the basic problem with addiction is when you're addicted to something, giving up the addiction

means giving up fun. It means making your life just less enjoyable than it could be. This is something I've seen in any kind of addiction. So let's take alcohol addiction, for example. I can go to parties and be sober. I can go to a nice meal and not have a glass of wine. But if I have a nice glass of wine, if I'm relaxing on the beach with a cocktail, it just enhances my enjoyment, right? It just makes life more full, more complete.

If I go to a barbecue, not being able to have a beer, like, yeah, I can still have fun and socialize and eat something, but like having a couple of cold beers, like, or going in the pool and like having a cold beer, like, it just enhances my life. And so the struggle against addiction, this is actually what makes it so devastating, is that when you have someone who's addicted to something and you ask them to give it up, what they're doing is lowering the cap of happiness on life from 100% to like 75%, 80%. And that's what makes it so tricky. Because it's like I could just make this experience better if I engaged in this thing that I'm addicted to.

There's got to be some way that I can not have a problem with alcohol and still gain all of the maximal enjoyment from some of these experiences of alcohol. Like having a nice glass of wine or having a cocktail on the beach. There's got to be some way. And so when we're addicted to the internet, we do the same thing. There's got to be some way for moderation, right? I don't need to cut out Snapchat and YouTube entirely. Like, that sounds like, what am I going to do? Like, I'm going to be bored all the time.

I'm addicted to this thing, but the alternative is cutting it out completely, and then, like, I'm going to be bored. You're asking me to be bored instead of having fun. I don't like being bored. I hate being bored. It's the worst thing in the world. So it feels like I shouldn't have to cut it out. There's got to be some middle ground.

There's got to be something I can do. Absidence only doesn't work, especially when it's internet addiction. What are you telling me that I'm never supposed to check my email again? So this is the challenge of being addicted to the internet. Because you don't want to cut it out, or maybe you can't cut it out. And it's like using Discord as like a huge part of my social life. It's become so ingrained with our whole life that we can't cut it out or we feel like we can't cut it out. So let's try to understand step by step what's going on because this person has done a fantastic job.

Whoops. This person has done a fantastic job of isolating a couple of key aspects of internet addiction. So let's start with number one, easily distracted. So technology is making us more distractible, 100%, but what we're going to tunnel down on is why it's hard to be productive when you're addicted to technology. So I'm going to give you all this example. So back in the day, when I was trying to study at the library, let's say 50 years ago, did people get distracted? 100%. Like even in my day, when I was in college like in 2001, I would get distracted at the library. The challenge is that when I get distracted, what do I lose? So when I get distracted, I'm trying to study and my mind wanders, and I lose about 60 to 120 seconds. My mind starts to wander. I start twiddling with my pen. I make a doodle on the side of the page.

and then eventually, like, since I'm sitting in the library, right, and I'm on like the fourth floor, my mind wanders back. So it is normal for the mind to fluctuate. This is completely normal. Right? So here's studying. Here's studying. And there are fluctuations.

Completely normal. Now, how has technology changed this? It's because now when I get distracted, the ease of slipping into something that deviates my mind is way greater. So now when I get distracted and I open up, let's say YouTube, I go down here. Right? So this is the initial distraction.

And then YouTube suggests more things to me, more things to me, more things to me that are very dopaminergic and engaging. And so now a 60 second distraction. Because how hard is it to alt tab over or open YouTube or click on another channel? And this is the thing. Technology is designed to make it so easy for us to slip in. Shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts. Auto login.

I now have like a fingerprint accessor for my phone. So now if I want you all to think about this, when people added like biometric readings or fingerprint access to bypass the security in phones, what did that do? It cut down the time it's required to open up an app. Do you all get that? So every year that goes by, it used to take me 10 seconds to put in my security code. Now it takes zero. So what that means is that every second of distraction, right, from zero to 60, every second, I have a chance to go back to studying.

You all get that? I have a chance to get my mind in order. But now what's happening with technology, it's becoming so sophisticated and so quick. It's so easy to access things now. And once we slip into it, we get taken advantage of by the app. So now YouTube is recommending things to us, right? And remember that apps are even doing things like they're paying attention to how far down you scroll before you click on something. So if I scroll, let's say there's five things I can click on.

And each of these opportunities, there's a chance I can go back to studying. And I click on this one. So what does the app learn? Next time around, this one is going to be on. top. Reduces my chance to be able to study. Y'all get that? So we've always been easily distractible. The challenge is that the price, the cost we pay for being distracted is way worse now than it used to be. Because back in the day, if I got distracted, like, if I want to like do something fun and not be bored, I got to pack up all my stuff, unplug my laptop, put all my books away, close up my

water bottle, put my backpack on, climb down four flights of steps, step outside, walk to my dorm room to be able to queue for a game of Warcraft 3. It's a 20-minute endeavor. Now, if I'm studying at home and I can double-click an icon and I find a queue instantly way harder. Does that make sense? The price of distraction is way higher than it used to be. Second thing to understand, am not willing or unable to quit. So we could talk a little bit about dopamine here. I think that's important. But I want you all to think about this for a second. Okay. So I recognize there's going to be a little bit of irony here. So what would your life be like? What would you really be giving up if you never watched Twitch or YouTube again?

what would life be like? What would actually happen? Think about it for a second. What would you lose? What would you gain? Right? And I recognize that this is kind of weird, right? Because we use these platforms.

So the irony of like clickbait is that like even when we're making YouTube videos, we are trying to make compelling thumbnails. Because we've got an option, right? We can deliver boring-ass content with dry thumbnails. We can be, Dr. Kay can be like, Okay, today we're going to talk about internet addiction. Internet addiction has a couple of key pieces. It has distractibility.

It has this. It has that. And people feel like they're unable or unwilling to quit. And for our thumbnail, we're going to have a white background with black letters that just say internet addiction. And we're going to do monotone and we're not going to play the clickbait game. And we're going to, you know, not use these tactics. and then that way no one will ever watch the video. We'll get like 117 views over the course of 10 years

because it'll be buried by the algorithm. But we're going to stay pure, right? In fact, actually what we're going to do, just to stay pure and academic, right, because we don't want to use these things, we're going to grab the Massachusetts General Handbook on Psychiatry and we're going to teach you all today about neuroimaging and psychiatry.

In general, neuroimaging is used is an aid in the differential diagnosis of neuropsychiatric conditions. Rarely does it, rarely does neuroimaging alone establish the diagnosis. Look at this. So we got to play the game, right?

To try to help y'all. We got to play too. So this is what I want y'all to do. Ask yourself this question. If you never watched YouTube again, what would that be like? And this is this tricky thing. I don't even care about the question.

If you guys really want to control this behavior, I don't care about the question. I don't care about the answer. What I care about is the response in your body when I ask it. What would it be like to never watch YouTube again? And watch what happens in your mind. Intellectually, you'd say, oh, yeah, that'd be great. I'd be free. But instinctively, there's going to be like this, ah, no, don't take it away from me.

You all see that? Look at that. So people in chat are saying pain, panic, torture, fomo, despair, envy, hope, all kinds of mixed up, mixed up, mixed up feelings. Am I not willing or unable to quit? It's a little bit of both. Because you don't want to give it up. What does that mean? Like this person watches YouTube videos while they're working out.

Am I supposed to just be bored while I'm working out? heaven forbid Dr. K. We're trying not to use profanity, but I think this is an okay area. Dr. K, what am I supposed to do when I take a shit? What am I supposed to do? Am I just supposed to sit there and just poop? Like an animal? Is that what you expect from me?

I can't do that. We can't give it up. So pay attention to your reaction because that's what's driving the addiction. Y'all get that? Next thing. I shouldn't have to quit. I want you all to tap into the moralistic outrage of this statement.

I shouldn't have to give up my favorite apps. Shouldn't, according to who? What are you talking about? Is this like the 11th commandment? If you live a good and holy life, thou shalt not give up your favorite apps? Like, who determines this crap? I shouldn't need to give up this happiness,

this joy, this dopamine from this app. It's not fair. So what is this? Like, is this, like, I want you to really, like, tunnel down if you feel this way. Is this, like, moralistic outrage? Do you feel taken advantage of? Like, where is this thought coming from? Because there's a lot of energy behind it.

So, this, too, is a huge statement that I hear a lot of addicts make. Not a huge fan of the phrase addict because it defines a purpose. person with an illness, right? So in medicine, we have a couple of different ways of saying things. A person with schizophrenia versus schizophrenic, person with diabetes versus diabetic. So when we like personify an illness into a person, you'll notice we do this for some illnesses and not others. So we'll do it for addicts, but we won't do it for people with cancer. There's no noun that describes someone who's cancerous. right? You all get that? There's a word like leper, which we define someone by an illness,

but there's no word for a person with cancer, at least that I'm familiar with. Maybe I'm wrong, right? Cancerist is an adjective. That's my point. So, shouldn't have to quit is sometimes the last bastion of an addiction. Because it's sort of like the addiction will take a moralistic outrage and say this is unfair to me, screw it, I'm not going to play this game. So be careful about that, right? Shouldn't have to quit? Okay, says who? What's wrong with quitting? What's wrong with giving up? What does it cost you? And now we get to number four, which is never have patience. Now, this is where the neuroscience really comes in. If you all want to learn a lot about this, we do a bunch of stuff around neuroscience and motivation in our current, in the upcoming guide,

but let's talk about this. This is where we have. have the dreaded dopamine reward. So this is what happens in your brain. So when we look at technology, technology activates parts of our brain. It's how it works. It just activates parts of our brain. That's why we like it. Now, these parts of our brain are designed to be activated, right? So if you look at like the dopamine reward circuitry, like when I do a good job and my boss says, great job, that's supposed to activate my dopamine reward circuit. I don't know if it activates dopamine, really, but let's just stick with the analogy. The problem with technology is that it's just activates that circuitry just in a way easier way, right? So this is why technology is so

addictive. It's because it's a shortcut to activating our brain with a very, very low barrier of investment. So I want y'all to think about, so I enjoy whitewater rafting from time to time. sometimes when you go whitewater rafting, you feel the sense of triumph, especially if you're about to capsize. And it's like you're rowing with all your might, your adrenaline is pumping, you don't capsize,

you're through the rapid, and you're like cheering, and it's like it feels amazing and alive. And you can get that feeling from a video game. It's not quite the same, but it's really close. Right? So video games don't perfectly mimic life,

but they activate a lot of, like, If you're down, right? And there's one minute left on the clock and you kind of ride it, you push it back and you win in a last minute victory. Like I've seen these matches from places like CSGO and stuff like that where there's like one dude left against four people and he's out of ammo and all he's got or she's got is a knife. And they go knifing one person down, the next person down, next person down. And then they're triumphant. They've won this grand finals with like a knife victory. And it's like, oh my God, it's so amazing.

And everyone's cheering and stuff like that. I don't know if you guys have ever been Megad in League of Legends or Dota or whatever, like, mega creeped. And then all of your inhibitors are destroyed. And then like you make a comeback and you destroy their whatever, whatever the throne is and lull. Right? Like get. And so technology gives us all this stuff just easier. Because it's such a pain in the ass to go white water raffing.

You got to travel somewhere. You got to pay something. You got to suit up. You got to wake up early in the morning. it just costs so much higher. So why is it so easy to never have patience for the rest of the world when you're addicted to the internet?

It's because the internet gives it to you faster, easier. Not quite as good, but it's like the fast food for life is what the internet is. It's a fast food, highly processed, easily available. It's like the McNugget of living life. you can go and have a romantic relationship yourself or you can have the easier process version of that

by watching a relationship show. And oh my God, isn't that so much better? You get all the joy of drama without being involved. Oh my God. So you never have the patience for life if you're addicted to the internet. 100%. It's because your brain is like,

okay, we've got two options. We can just use the internet or we can go out and be bored for a long time. Like I can socialize with humans, but what if I don't enjoy that? Then what am I going to do? I'm going to be at the party.

I'm going to be scrolling on my phone. This is the other thing. We take the internet with us wherever we go. It's with us always. Like a safety blanket. Like a stuffed animal. Always there with that hit of dopamine

whenever you need it. riding in the elevator. Oh, you poor thing. You're in the elevator for 45 seconds. I got you. Take a bump, yo. Pull out your phone. Now with face ID, you don't even have to put in your passcode. It's going to be so efficient. It's not going to, a 45 second elevator ride means 44 seconds of opening stuff up at the urinal, on the potty. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but even on dates. I'm on a date. Someone goes and uses the bathroom. Out comes the phone. So then people say, okay, I have no patience for anything. Of course not. How would you ever gain patience? How would you ever learn patience when instant gratification is literally a second away? This is what technology

does to us if we're not careful. So I believe that technology is advancing at a rate that 30, 40, 50 years from now, we're going to look back on technology advancement, kind of like the way that we do for something like nicotine, where we like didn't realize what it was doing to us and we kind of like expanded it so much. It infiltrated every aspect of our life. And it got out of control. Now, I don't think technology is evil. So I think that it's very useful. Maybe in that way, nicotine isn't really a great example. Maybe something like, you know, combustion is a better example where like we used it because it was awesome and helped us do so many things, but came at a very, very high price.

So if you're addicted to the internet, it's hard. What do you do about it? Four things to keep in mind. So the experience of people who are addicted to the internet, first of all, find that they're very, very easily distracted. Right? And if you're easily distracted, it's not so much that you're easier to distract than you used to be,

although that may be true as well. We're not going to go into that. But the key thing is that the price of distraction is now way higher than it ever used to be. So 50 years ago, when you're studying at the library, you get distracted. You have nothing to do. And eventually your mind goes back to studying. Whereas now, if you get distracted, it's so easy to open something up and then go down the rabbit hole for four hours in Doom Scroll. The distraction is actually the same.

The difference is what happens after you get distracted. Second thing to consider is that oftentimes, we're not willing or unable to quit. Is it an addiction? Can I not control it in my brain? Or do I not want to give it up? And if you really want to get to the source of that, what you should do is ask this question. What would it mean if I uninstalled this app or YouTube or whatever, uninstalled this video game? And like your mind may come up with all kinds of cognitive answers, but that's not actually what we want to focus on. We want to focus on the emotions. if I tell you no more YouTube ever.

What does it do to you? How does your mind... No! That's the source of the addiction. You all feel that? Like, that's where the addiction comes from. It's like, you know, it's like a geothermal vent

that is venting out something deep down within you. And you've got to go find it. Another thing that sometimes happens is when we're addicted to something, we get really upset because we shouldn't have to. give it up. I don't want to give it up. There must be moderation. There must be honest. And it probably is in terms of internet usage, honestly. So I'm not against moderation.

In fact, that's why we're a healthy gamer instead of no more gaming. Right. We're about developing healthy habits around technology, which I think is an increasingly important skill, because I don't think we can go back to being Amish. I don't think that's going to work. Maybe I'm wrong. By all means, prove me wrong. But we've got to learn healthy technology habits. And a big part of that is we've got to be careful because something that the addiction will use is telling us that moderation is possible. Having us hunt for moderation, hunt for moderation, hunt for moderation, hunt for moderation. And when we hunt for moderation, the addiction gets satisfied. So is it possible to use technology in a healthy way? 100%. But for you in this moment, maybe not. So take those worst defenders and honestly uninstall them. See what happens.

last thing to consider is that as we use more and more technology, we don't have patience for IRL. And that actually causes even a worse problem. Because now what's happening is IRL stuff is getting harder and technology stuff is getting easier. So we get shifted more and more towards technology and more towards things like internet addiction. And as our social skills get rusty, as we don't quite take care of ourselves as much because we're in the computer, in front of a computer screen all day long, as our laundry doesn't get done

and things like that, it gets harder and harder to engage in the real world. And so we don't have patience to do things in the real world. That's because technology like hits those centers of our brain that normally real life hits. It hits it just so much easier. Dirtier, though. It's like a incomplete combustion. It's like a dirty pollutant source of energy. Like it gets us that dopamine hit, but not in a healthy and nourishing way. It feels really good in the moment when you make a big comeback in a video game, but six years later, you don't feel confident in yourself as a human being because of that victory. That's the problem with technology.

Is that it activates just enough of our brain to out-compete real life without actually giving us the advantages of real life. And the more we go down that, the less patience we have, for the real world. Very challenging. Fortunately, very common. So if you all want more information on this stuff, especially things like building technology habits and stuff like that, we've got a whole lecture about the process of how to do that in worksheets and things like that coming out in our guide. I strongly also recommend you check out some of our other things. Like we did dopamine detox together as on Discord a couple months ago. So by all means, like ask these questions,

explore this stuff. It's also not a bad idea if you really feel like you're addicted to get evaluated by an actual clinician. You know, this is going to be one of those places where can a coach help you build healthy technology habits, undoubtedly? But if you're really feeling like your function is impaired, like you're failing out of class, you're not able to go to work, things like that, if you're seeing a real functional impairment, really you should go see a therapist. Make sense? It's tough.