Confessions of a recovering junkie

Kuldeep Datay wears the calm of a man who’s been there, seen it all. A Mumbai-based clinical psychologist affiliated to the Institute for Psychological Health, he often faces worried parents seeking help for their zombie like-adolescents who have withdrawn from the mainstream. Intelligent, but socially inept and aggressive, these kids behave much like crack or heroin addicts. There is no evidence, though, to prove that they are on mind-altering substances as conventionally understood.

After conversations with and evaluations of these kids, Datay often times concludes that their behaviour is a function of technology addiction. “There is a reason why it is called dope. When deeply engaged with gadgets, social media or just the Internet, you get a dopamine kick, much like you do with drugs. So they go back to it again and again. When denied access, they withdraw, or get aggressive,” explains Datay.

The problem isn’t an adolescent phenomenon. At the time of writing this article, RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com), a piece of software that resides on my laptop, tells me it’s been a little over 653 hours since I first installed it. What I’ve discovered about myself since then disturbs me. It ought to disturb you as well because I’m reasonably sure a good number of this newspaper’s readers are in the same place I am in.NextMAds

• Of the 653 hours RescueTime has been around, the dashboard tells me I’ve been actively engaged with my laptop for 309 hours, or a staggering 47% of my waking hours.

• Of these 309 hours, 183 hours, just about 60% of my time, was spent on productive work.

• The 126 hours that remained were spent on mindless, distracting tasks. Mildly put, I spent an obscene 40% doing nothing more than reading tweets, posting and arguing on social media, watching videos and everything else RescueTime calls uncategorized stuff. fourthMAds

• Now, if 309 hours were spent on the laptop, technically I had 344 hours for myself to rest, recuperate and engage in activities I enjoy.

• But Fitbit, an activity tracker I wear on my wrist 24/7, tells me I am not rested. It informs me I slept on average 4.17 hours every night, just a little over half that my body actually needs. Worse, not all of these sleeping hours were deep. The graphs show I slip, on average, four-five times into interrupted or light sleep.

• If that isn’t bad enough, I didn’t use my waking hours to provide my body with at least 30 minutes of physical activity it needs everyday. If I did, Fitbit would have logged it. sixthMAds

• Because there is no version of RescueTime for my phone and tablet, I don’t know precisely how I spent my time on these devices. But I don’t need rocket science to know most of it was spent on random surfing, texting, following tweets, clicking links and digging myself deeper into an unproductive rabbit hole.

By every yardstick, I had turned into an Internet junkie, much like cocaine or heroin addicts. If you think that’s harmless, here’s a fact. The pleasure centres that tickle Internet junkies and drug addicts are the same. We know this because of recent advances in the neurosciences.

Susan Weinschenk, a behavioural psychologist, explains in her blog post on Pyschology Today, “With the Internet, Twitter, and texting you now have almost instant gratification of your desire to seek. Want to talk to someone right away? Send a text and they respond in a few seconds. Want to look up some information? Just type your request into Google. Want to see what your colleagues are up to? Go to LinkedIn. It’s easy to get in a dopamine-induced loop. Dopamine starts you seeking, then you get rewarded for the seeking, which makes you seek more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting, or stop checking your cell phone to see if you have a message or a new text.”

“Interestingly, brain scan research shows that the brain has more activity when people are anticipating a reward than getting one. Research on rats shows that if you destroy dopamine neurons, rats can walk, chew, and swallow, but will starve to death even when food is right next to them. They have lost the anticipation and desire to go get the food. Although wanting and liking are related, research also shows that the dopamine system doesn’t have satiety built in. It is possible for the dopamine system to keep saying ‘more more more’, causing you to keep seeking even when you have found the information. How many times have you searched for something on Google, found the answer, and yet realize a half hour later that you are still online looking for more information?” she writes.

This phenomenon has also been described as the compulsion loop. It compels you to continually check email on your smartphone in anticipation of receiving good news. When kept away from smartphones, researchers discovered power users experience “phantom smartphone buzzing”, which tricks our brains into thinking our phone is vibrating when it isn’t. I confess to being a victim to this syndrome.

The other interesting piece of literature I came across originates from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. They discovered spending two hours in front of a backlit electronic gadget like a tablet or smartphone suppresses production of melatonin by 22%. This hormone regulates sleep cycles. Any deficit in its production leads to delayed sleep, interrupted circadian patterns and early waking times.

In the weeks leading up to writing this piece, I tried a few experiments on myself. I asked myself to watch what happens on days I disconnect from the Internet and all of my devices after 9.30pm until 7.30am.

A few interesting things showed up right away.

Without access to the Internet or my phone, anxiety levels, consumption of junk food and smoking cigarettes went up. Higher anxiety levels have to do with a drop in dopamine production. Junk food and nicotine, in cigarettes, incidentally, induce dopamine production.

Perhaps it was my body’s way of making up for the hit it was taking from being denied what it wanted.

That said, Fitbit data showed that on days I cut access early, I slept deeper, longer and with fewer interruptions. This ties into what I pointed out earlier on melatonin production.

It isn’t easy. But I’m trying. And I’m giving the Sabbath Manifesto (www.sabbathmanifesto.org) a shot—one day of the week, every week.

1. Avoid technology

2. Connect with loved ones

3. Nurture your health

4. Get outside

5. Avoid commerce

6. Light candles

7. Drink wine

8. Eat bread

9. Find silence

10. Give back

Manifestoes of this kind, says Datay, can be aided by prescription drugs to control impulsive behaviour.

Charles Assisi was managing editor at Forbes India and is at work on his first venture. He maintains a personal website on www.audaciter.net and tweets on @c_assisi.