Humanity is prone to addictive behaviour. This is common knowledge. The number of current addictions however is quite staggering. We can explore the concept of addiction from a few viewpoints.
Evolutionary Behaviour
Addictive behaviour lies in motivation and the pursuit of pleasure, and is found in the reward circuit of the brain. This system evolved over time to ensure that species would be motivated to look for food, seek out shelter and self-preserve. All these things would give the individual some measure of pleasure and satisfaction that they are still alive at the end of the day, in safety and fed.
This system has worked quite well for a few hundred million years.
The Reward Circuit
In basic terms, the reward circuit includes several parts of the brain in a system that is designed to ensure the individual stays motivated to seek that which aids its survival and reproduction.
When there is an unexpected reward that arises from a prediction error, this kicks on the system. The reward triggers the pleasure centre of the brain, the individual enjoys the reward. The reward could be food, shelter or social interaction. The reward is unexpected and so the stimuli that was present before the reward becomes a learning point in order to remember the stimuli as a trigger. The stimuli becomes more strongly associated with that reward the more it’s repeated. It’s known as a cue. This could be a specific location marker before finding food.
This triggers other parts of the brain releasing dopamine. With the increase release of dopamine, it causes the brain to learn the cues that resulted in the unexpected reward. Once the association has been made, it’s been made.
In the future when those cues are presented to the individual, the individual is triggered and are motivated by the cue. This motivates them to essentially follow the cue to seek the reward, whether its food or shelter perhaps. The reward is no longer unexpected, so no new learning is done. However the associated with the cue and the reward are linked. The dopamine gets released on the cue, creating the wanting, craving and motivation.
Tolerance is a mechanism that the body creates to adjust to over-stimulation. It isn’t safe or conducive for the system to be over-stimulated all the time or to feel the same level of stimulation each time. Each time you experience something, you will never get the same high feeling as when you first experienced something. This goes for many things. Food, drink, drugs, new experiences, new places, watching a film for the first time, meeting someone new. The brain creates tolerance. Depending on how much you consume, the brain will create more and more tolerance, meaning you need larger doses to even feel anything.
In addictions that are really bad, this circuit of behaviour also affects the prefrontal cortex, essentially reducing its capacity and functioning. The prefrontal cortex is involved with higher brain function, reasoning and making decisions. If it erodes, as it does in bad addictive behaviour, the decision making is numbed essentially making the individual do things that doesn’t seem normal or reasonable, in order to obtain the pleasure they are seeking. When the addictive behaviour starts to affect the everyday life of the individual, their work or their relationships with others, then it could be moving into the class of serious addiction. In those individuals, the prefrontal cortex will likely be damaged, as they simply don’t know what reasonable rational behaviour is anymore, they are so consumed with obtaining the pleasure that it doesn’t matter what happens in their life or to others.
The brain wasn’t designed to be over-stimulated, the consequences results in disappointment and constant chasing.
What Triggers the Reward Circuit?
The reward circuit is designed for small natural highs of pleasure that are derived from finding food in a forest, the scarcity of sugar and fat in natural plant life, cool water and interacting with individuals of the same species.
However, in the modern world we are constantly surrounded by triggers that ignites the reward circuit and over-stimulates it. The reward circuit and motivation system was never designed for the world we have created today.
Food
Food was once scarce and difficult to find, today it is essentially everywhere and can arrive on your doorstep within minutes and you don’t have to do much except choose and exchange resources. The sheer choice of food is ridiculous, something that we aren’t exactly designed to handle. The quality of the food isn’t designed to benefit our systems, it is designed to motivate us to want more of it, again and again, with the fats, sugar and salt present. These ignite the reward circuit like nobody’s business, creating over stimulated pleasure responses and learning the cues associated with getting this reward.
Alcohol and Drugs
Alcohol is found in nature, sometimes in grapes when they are left out too long. But it is very low in concentration. So are other psychoactive drugs that we are aware of like tobacco, weed, mushrooms, cocaine, and heroin. Even minor ones like coffee beans and cacao. These are all plants and have very low psychoactive concentration levels in their natural forms.
However, today we have learnt to isolate the active ingredients and refine them to no end. Making them stronger and stronger, over-stimulating our brains reward circuit, creating tolerance levels and the craving for something stronger to get that pleasure high. As our brains were not designed for this level of stimulation, the coping mechanisms can be quite severe.
Sex
Sex is for reproductive and social purposes for humanity. For a select few, sex is used for power, control and abuse. The rise of pornography and technology has made the feelings relating to sex, readily available. It also allows some people to access desires they are unable to access in practical reality.
Sex differs in cultures across the world, how it is viewed, when it should happen in a relationship and related stigmas. However like most things, it triggers the reward circuit, making it pleasurable to the individual in some way, driving motivation. In the modern world we get over stimulated leading to some with terrible behaviour patterns relating to sex.
Technology
The western world is fast paced and getting faster. Developing countries are catching up, they want to reach certain heights within their economies. A lot of this is driven by technology and the capabilities that come with that.
Information is readily available at our fingertips, we don’t have to conduct our own research, or trawl through books to find a fact. We can ask Google or chat gpt and it will spew out an answer in milliseconds.
We can communicate with people around the world, holding 20 conversations at the same time across email and instant messaging. We can reply in seconds and expect replies within seconds.
Our smart phones are the very definition of addictive technology. Every ping we get, every notification, triggers the reward system. We constantly check our phone and stare at it and wonder where it is. This is the cue that leads to the pleasure point of receiving a notification. Someone wants to speak to us, someone needs something from us, or we have received something like an email, update on latest news blast, or a reward in a game we’re playing. These are all pleasurable points which vary from person to person. However the cue, the initial stimulus, lies in the behaviour of finding the phone, checking the phone, wanting to be with the phone all the time in case the notification bell goes off which is why we can’t go anywhere without our phones, we’d be lost.
Social media takes it another level. There are more chances to get those pleasure hits in social media through likes, comments, shares, saves. This makes it more enticing to want to check your phone, log in, and change your content to get those likes. Or you could be one of those who scroll continuously and don’t upload much content, consuming content that is funny or satisfying or gruesome to watch. The endless content is pleasurable for us, it just goes on forever, and there is no end. For a species who is used to rarity and limits, having this unlimited space is pleasurable to our brains. We want to be in it, experience it, and escape the limits of life in this unlimited space.
Gambling and Gaming
Gambling and gaming is a behaviour thing similar to technology. It isn’t about consuming something like food or drinks, but the behaviour of gambling and playing games and the unexpected rewards of money and other resources whether real or virtual, is enough to trigger the reward circuit and have the same effects as psychoactive drugs and sugar.
Playing games with unexpected rewards leads to the pleasure response, the brain learning the cues associated with it, tolerance of the pleasure feeling and in hard core addicts, and the breakdown of the prefrontal cortex.
With the internet, gambling and gaming is now more accessible and addictive than ever. The quality and quantity of gambling games and other types of games are improving vastly, with players quite literally spending hours in online worlds and not living in the real world.
Virtual reality and AI is taking us further into this world, affecting the younger generations who find it more pleasurable to be in the virtual worlds than in the real one.
Social Interactions
We get happy when we see a friend or spend time with family. This has evolved to strengthen the social group and social connections. We survive better in a group than alone and so we have to forge relationships and connect with each other in order to work effectively with each in a group and survive.
It is noted that social species are more intelligent than species who live isolated lives. Therefore it is a natural consequence that we are motivated to seek out social connections because it generates a pleasure response and aids survival.
Social interactions however have changed from hunter gatherer times to modern times. Hunter gatherer times was all about the family tribe. A small group with all ages, moving around and living together in shared spaces. This enabled easy social interactions, building relationships and connections with each other. Tribes would come together and forge new connections from time to time. We are capable of being part of a group of around 150 people, knowing all the people and having social interactions with them to the point that you know them well enough. Beyond this, it is difficult for our brains to manage.
As agriculture took off with towns and cities getting bigger, beyond anything a hunter gatherer tribe would have been part of, the scene of social interactions undoubtedly shifted. People were crammed together in accommodation, very close quarters and living with strangers rather than close family members. This would have begun to overload the system.
With industrialisation, cities grew bigger and the working lifestyle changed, creating another massive shift in social interactions. Then with the advent of tech, and social media, the ability to have 5000 friends online was born. The more friends we have, the better. The more followers we have, the better. This triggers other things like social proof and figures of authority, which in turn triggers the reward circuit.
Constant Overload
I have explored a few facets of modern life and the effects they have on the reward circuit and addictive behaviour. We have created an over-stimulating environment for ourselves without really realising it. The changes happened so gradually that the majority of previous generations wouldn’t have even noticed it.
We are living in a time now where those changes are happening at lightning speed compared to how slow early human societies and civilisations grew. With the advent of speed, innovation and population increase, the amount of things in our daily lives that can trigger our reward system, is simply ridiculous.
It is no wonder that mental health and physical health issues are massively on the rise, and of course issues with other species and the wider planet. We are not made to be overstimulated like this. The brain and body will cope with all its mechanisms designed to reach homeostasis however but it is slowly breaking down.
Pay attention to the world around you and your behaviour patterns. Your brain will always want to conserve energy and be efficient, don’t be an automatic being operating on auto pilot and letting the world trigger you into doing things that are not good for your brain or body.
Become aware. And maybe we can slow down a bit.
