The “Online Brain”: Opportunity or Trap?

Why do we get addicted to online content so easily? In other words – is dopamine our friend or rather an enemy?

It depends. Dopamine is one of the major neurotransmitters, responsible for motivation, feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. It serves an important function, but this is a compound that is actually slightly addictive in itself. It gives us pleasure, which causes our brain to remember it and which seeks out to repeat it over and over.

Where is the catch?

This is known as a ‘forecasting error.’ No matter what kind of addiction it is, behavioral or chemical, the pattern is always the same. With drugs, we get this dopamine rush and we remember that. The same is with internet-based entertainment. Imagine you found a rare token in a game, you feel the pleasure and expect to feel the same next time. But there’s a small trick in the system. Every next time you find a token the pleasure is smaller and smaller. So the brain has to figure out something else to get the same amount of pleasure as before. It needs to get stronger or more exciting stimuli.

Our brain basically functions on this forecasting construct: when reality and what we predict matches, the brain stays in its comfort zone. Everything is in order so it thinks: “I do not need to intervene.” But if something is a bit different, then the brain reacts a lot because it’s about our survival, something changes in the environment, we need to relate it and adjust accordingly.

And in this way behavioral addictions are very tricky. Whereas in chemical ones there are certain limits, since overdosing basically causes death, in case of internet addiction this is not possible. You always have as much as you want. And this availability makes it so difficult to handle and control it.

Online Brain vs. Internet Addiction

What exactly do you mean by internet addiction? Is it an umbrella topic for online gaming, excessive internet browsing and social media engagement?

Yes, this is exactly how it is viewed right now. Although gaming may not seem in any way similar to social media engagement, the common link here is the dopamine that is released both when we reach a new level in a game and when we get 50 likes on an Instagram photo.

The meta-analysis of available studies found that persistent problematic use of the internet has long-term effects on the way our brain functions, but also on its structure.

The general conclusion is that our brain, influenced by internet exposure, changes both in negative and positive ways. The first example is related to the prefrontal cortex, the command center of the brain, that is involved in all cognitive functions. Excessive gaming causes thinning of the prefrontal cortex, changing connections, making it less functional. And that’s a big problem, because it means that when we need to take a certain decision or perform a certain cognitive function, we need more energy to maintain it at the level it was before.

Also, our emotional centers that process emotions, but also collect information about the body, its signals, condition and are responsible for emotional self-control, get highly affected. The altered connections among parts of the brain result in a situation where the emotional centers start making decisions on their own, without ‘consulting’ the prefrontal cortex. As a result we have anxiety symptoms, eating disorders and automatically respond to addiction-related stimuli.

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FOMO and Other Phenomena

There are new phenomena, such as FOMO – fear that we will miss something important while offline, or phantom vibration syndrome, which refers to the false perception that our mobile phone or other technological device is vibrating. According to research conducted in the USA, close to 90% of pupils in the U.S. struggle with it. 

Yes, it’s alarming since it means that – by looking for new likes and notifications – we are constantly on alert, aware of the fact that we have a phone to which we need to address our resources. The problem is that our resources are limited, like for any cognitive, motor, or any other function. We need 100% of these resources to perform certain actions. Then when we are distracted it means we are not performing at the high level. 

You also mentioned the positive effects of extensive internet use.

These come from the fact that depending on the type of internet activity you’re involved in, you develop necessary features for that. For example, online gaming helps to optimize our brains to react to sudden images or improves rapid motor behavior. Some time ago there was a study conducted on a group of surgeons which showed that playing video games appears to help them with skills that truly count – how well they operate using a precise technique. This is related to the change in the brain anatomy – necessary parts get connected more efficiently. So the brain doesn’t need to use a lot of energy on the thing that is being done frequently.

One of this study’s authors, Douglas Gentile, said that “Parents should not see this study as beneficial if their child is playing video games for over an hour a day. Spending that much time playing video games is not going to help their child’s chances of getting into medical school.” This may sound humorous, but the statistics are not optimistic. One of the recent studies shows that 15% of Polish teenagers are addicted to social media, while two thirds are online for more than 4 hours a day.

Yes, but we need to bear in mind that every person has his individual range of internet usage where he feels okay. For example, with the equal amount of time spent online two kids can deal with completely different consequences: one boy, spending a few hours playing a computer game, still will be able to learn well, enjoy additional activities, hang out with friends in real life. Another boy with the same amount of gaming would not have anything. He will not be able to catch up with homework, he won’t sleep well, won’t have social connections outside the internet. So the timing is not the only thing we need to look at.

But what can we do to help children who have crossed their respective limits and don’t see a way back? Governments implement different approaches, e.g. in South Korea gaming sites are blocked overnight as a preventative measure. Or even a stronger prevention attempt – the best schools in the U.S. restrict internet usage for students up until the age of 12.

I don’t think this is a good direction. For a number of reasons – the internet is much of our everyday life, this will not disappear over the years, on the contrary – when our kids grow up, it will be an increasingly important part of their life. They simply need to become prepared for the future.

On the top of that, internet content, such as online games, are also gaining a deeper cultural context nowadays. For example This War Of Mine and The Cipher Game have been added to the list of non-compulsory reading at Polish schools.

Exactly, and imagine we still don’t understand this change and get the idea that the cure for all evil is to cut the child off from the computer. As a result, a child that doesn’t know what Minecraft is will be excluded from his peer group.

Instead of forbidding certain activities, I believe that kids need attention and education from our side. Recently my daughter and her friends were playing a game online and then she complained she was not feeling well. That’s a very good opportunity to say: “Yes, that’s not surprising because you have been playing for five hours in a row. You do not feel well because you are not moving, not eating, not making enough breaks.” It’s just showing that this particular condition is related to your bad feeling right now, so we create this loop of hearing the body and making a conclusion.

I think our task as parents is to teach the kids who balance between the safe and addictive model, a new way of behavior. This can be done by introducing new routines into their lives, showing what can happen and what are the signs when it’s just too much.

Online Brain: What is Wrong with Our Brains?

There are further challenges our children, growing up in a digital environment, will face. Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to our brains is concerned about the shift many of us are making from deep reading to online scanning. It made him question the internet’s impact on our long-term memory and reasoning skills. He says we find ourselves just gathering information, checking updates, looking for news – constantly filling in the working memory. But never slowing down to mull over it. As a result, we lose the ability to concentrate and be attentive, to analyze the information, filter it through our experience, knowledge, beliefs.

It’s not surprising, since the brain is very economical and always finds a way to do things with the least energy possible. For example, you know on which website you can find information on when Napoleon launched the Russian campaign and what were the implications. The brain calculates: “Why should I remember this date? I’d better remember how to find this information and go there when needed.”

There’s a lot of truth behind Nicholas Carr’s observations. But I won’t agree with him on one point. I believe his concerns are unfounded when it comes to things we are really passionate about. In this case we are always able to go deep and benefit from unlimited internet resources. Nevertheless, in order to follow this ‘deep’ direction, motivation is key. And maybe this is the task for us, parents, to show our children how passion can enrich their lives.

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