This is why so many of us feel like our brains are badly overloaded

Screen saturation is draining our feel-good chemical, dopamine, and rewiring our brains, leaving us overstimulated and disconnected from the real world. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone that plays a crucial role in the brain’s reward and pleasure system. It’s involved in regulating mood, motivation, movement and learning, and is released when you experience pleasure or satisfaction. It also impacts parts of our physical body including blood vessels and heart function.

Screens and social media give us instant dopamine hits from scrolling our favourite comedy clips to checking how many likes our social media posts get. But you can have too much of a good thing? Now neuroscientist TJ Power, founder of The DOSE Lab, dedicated to advancing research on how modern lifestyles impact brain chemistry and wellbeing, is sounding the alarm on the dopamine crisis. Power, bestselling author of The DOSE Effect, who is known for his work on mental health in the digital age, discusses the dopamine crisis with podcast host James Smith on his chart-topping podcast The Problem With…

Talking in the episode, Dopamine, Power says our 300,000-year-old brains are being hijacked by a world of technology that is only a few decades old. “If you are struggling to concentrate, find everyday tasks annoying and feel life is less enjoyable, dull and mundane, then you have dopamine burnout,” he explains.

TJ, who studied for his Masters in neuro-science at Exeter University and conducts studies into dopamine effects at Southampton University, says most people could benefit from a digital detox to reduce dopamine to a normal, balanced level.

“Our ancestors experienced only a few dopamine spikes per day, modern life delivers hundreds, leaving the brain overstimulated and drained of motivation,” he says. “We were built for survival, sweat and real human connection, yet we’ve been thrust into a digital reality our ancient wiring was never meant to handle – it’s rewiring us faster than we can keep up.

“This technology has only been around a couple of decades and there is no way our brains can keep up.”

MOTIVATION-SAPPING SCREENS

Our lives, argues Power, are dominated by phones, laptops and endless social media and streaming, which is overstimulating our dopamine systems and leaving many of us feeling disconnected, unmotivated and drained. “Constant phone use and pervasive filming increase fear of social risk-taking, weakening confidence, motivation and resilience,” he adds.

“We have got to consider what our life currently looks like: Wake up and grab a small screen, spend 10 hours glued to a medium screen, procrastinate on the small screen, then unwind with a big screen, and finally climb into bed with the small screen. That’s our whole life right now – oscillating screens all day, every day.

To break that trap and rediscover a world beyond screens, you have to start spending time in that new reality.”

Podcast host James admits his entire working life depends on being online and immersed in tech – and the constant engagement takes its toll. Describing his “sacred” evening ritual of Netflix and social scrolling as both soothing and compulsive, he tells TJ he has his phone “resting on his chest” while he watches TV.

“It can be the best thing since sliced bread some days, but others it’s death via 1,000 paper cuts,” says James. “Sometimes I do need to leave my home, walk across to the beach and it’s only when I go underwater that I realise half this trivial s*** doesn’t even matter. Even 10 years into this role, I still struggle to disconnect, but when I do, I realise I spend way too much time plugged into social media, the mindless scrolling for dopamine, it’s genuinely depressing.”

FOCUS ON REAL LIFE

TJ explains that while dopamine addiction silently destroys motivation, boredom is essential for rebuilding focus. James adds: “Friends should agree when they are out together in a bar or restaurant to stack their phones in the middle of the table or use lock boxes. In London when I get off the Tube and walk to work I am on my phone but when I am out in nature I am looking around thinking ‘wow, look at that’.”

The pair also discuss online pornography and sexual overstimulation which TJ believes is killing real-life attraction and relationships. “Using porn as your default outlet isn’t just a harmless habit, it’s rewiring how people date, flirt and connect,” he says. “Many are choosing screens over real intimacy, and it’s warping expectations – the more boobs you see on a screen, the fewer you’ll see in real life.”

Online pornography is a particular concern for parents. The average age children see porn online is aged 13 but some even access it at primary school. TJ says he is fully supportive of the Australian government’s move last month to ban under 16s from using social media.

“There is no way a child can spend six or seven hours on a screen and not experience some sort of mental health problem, be it anxiety, low mood or even depression,” he adds. The 28-year-old is due to become a father for the first time himself with his Australian partner.

“I think there will be a massive net positive to what the Australian government is trying to do. What we have learned at the DOSE lab is the teen brain is hugely disrupted by social media. It damages relationships, confidence and self-esteem.

“As I am about to become a father for the first time I will be thinking very carefully about my child’s access to screens. There are babies who think the iPhone is the centre of the world. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle but we can sometimes put it back in for a short while and give our brains a break.

“Early man first invented fire, and that was quite the dopamine hit, but he didn’t stand there staring at it for eight hours. Although these days staring at a fire might be a really good thing to do instead.”

• The Problem With Dopamine: TJPower, is available to watch or listen to now, wherever you get your podcasts. The DOSE Effect: Everyday Habits to Balance Your Brain for a Healthier, Happier Life, by TJ Power (HarperCollins, £10.99) is out now