Photo by Akshar Dave on Unsplash
Dopamine has become our favourite explanation for everything we don't like about ourselves. Can't focus? Dopamine dysregulation. Scrolling at 2am? Dopamine addiction. Choosing Instagram over the washing up? Obviously your brain chemistry.
We've built an entire mythology around our supposedly broken reward systems. That explanation can leave another question unexplored: what were we feeling just before we reached for the phone?
Sometimes you pick up your phone because sitting with whatever you are feeling has become difficult to bear.
Waiting for the kettle to boil can bring a familiar restlessness. A quiet room can leave you anxious. Before looking for an explanation in your brain chemistry, you might notice what thoughts appear when there is nothing to occupy you.
An explanation can become another way to avoid paying attention to the feeling itself.
Every app, platform, and digital service is designed to eliminate friction. Feel lonely? Connect instantly. Feel bored? Infinite content awaits. Feel inadequate? Here's a feed carefully calibrated to give you just enough validation to keep scrolling.
We've created a world where you never have to sit with an uncomfortable feeling for more than three seconds. Then we wonder why our tolerance for difficulty has completely collapsed.
The system works perfectly. You feel something uncomfortable, you reach for your phone, the discomfort dissolves. Repeat this ten thousand times and you've trained yourself that discomfort is optional, that every difficult feeling has a digital solution.
Attention difficulties deserve to be taken seriously. ADHD can affect concentration and impulse control; struggling to focus is not evidence that someone is refusing to face their feelings.
It is still possible to ask what a particular episode of scrolling does for you. The answer may involve the demands of the task, a need for stimulation, or a feeling you would rather avoid. One explanation need not account for every occasion.
The dopamine framework is seductive because it makes everything a technical problem. Low motivation? Optimise your dopamine. Can't concentrate? Hack your reward system. Life feels empty? Must be your neurotransmitters.
Alongside that explanation, there may be something in your life that needs attention. You might be putting off a decision, avoiding an argument, or finding it difficult to spend an evening alone.
An explanation of brain chemistry cannot tell you what that decision or argument means to you. You still have to consider the circumstances in which you reach for distraction.
If you reach for your phone whenever you feel uneasy, it is worth asking what you are trying to avoid. You can practise noticing an uncomfortable feeling before reaching for something to distract you.
It might be anxiety about a conversation you have put off, loneliness at the end of the day, or uncertainty about how you want to spend your time. The explanation will not be the same for everyone, or every time you pick up the phone.
In therapy, there is time to explore what you mean when you say you are bored. You might begin to recognise a feeling that scrolling briefly relieves but does not resolve. Staying with it can be uncomfortable, particularly when distraction has become almost automatic.
Can you sit with yourself for five minutes without reaching for something to do? If you find it difficult, notice what makes it difficult. You do not have to turn that into another judgement about your brain or your willpower.
The phone may still be useful, entertaining or comforting. It can also give you a way to avoid a question you will eventually need to answer. Learning to tell those occasions apart takes attention to your own life.
