We are all addicts.
Social interactions trigger the same dopamine pathway reward response in our brains as food and drink. We reward ourselves for social behavior, for advancing the complexity of ourselves, regardless of what form that advance takes.
This is an ideal biological function for the development and maintenance of family and friends. It’s the chemical process inside ourselves that make tribalism possible and, even, a good thing, as a properly developed relationship, done over time, is a healthy relationship which rewards all sides and, therefore, grows.
We learn from experience that a relationship that happens too fast becomes hopelessly out of balance, turns into fatigue, and self-destructs. We also learn that if we go too slow, the ties don’t bind and the reward peters out, people go separate ways.
Social media triggers these reward reactions every time we share something, click like on something, offer a comment to something. It’s not only an instant gratification system, where you can point and click yourself into a euphoric dopamine reward state as fast as your fingers can move, but it is also an easy overload. It’s far far far too fast and it’s an inexhaustible stimuli.
Voila fatigue ie intolerance and polarization.
We polarize because we have plateaued in our dopamine high and naturally seek to refine the reward system.
So we pick sides. We form deeper ties with a tribe. If one takes negative feedback that sets the reward process back, one simply naturally shifts by point and click into the circle of a new tribe. Acceptance is found, the reward system re-engages. Those that ostracized have successfully defended their tribe, they have their reward, too.
And then fatigue sets in, because we plateau again, and new tribal boundaries are drawn in the sand so new rewards can feed the addiction. Rich/poor. Red/blue. Mainstream/non. Male/female. One generation and another.
And ’round and ’round the social media dopamine overload goes.
So we ask things like “What does a president’s actions have to do with a supreme court nominee’s qualifications?”
Logically? Nothing.
Chemically? Everything.
I wonder a lot lately what defense mechanism can develop. How can we grow to be able to handle this social interaction pace that our limbic systems were not developed to handle.
One will develop, somewhere, and, by virtue of the concept of herd immunity gradually restore humanity to humanity. Presumably.
But human biological and socio-cultural development are slow things, and social media moves at light speed.
When the person you’re talking to is being an asshole, it’s because their brains are rewarding them for their tribalism. You cannot reason away this chemical fact.
You cannot fight it off. All you will do is increase the complexity of their expression and the defense of their tribe will again chemically reward them.
So long as the entire method of interaction is a system that operates far beyond our brains’ ability to handle, we will continue to be a boiling pot, not a melting one.
“A strange game.
The only winning move is
not to play.”
Firefly Uprising 