Digital Health Concerns

  • Gaming

  • Information Overload

  • Porn

  • Social media 

  • Compulsive Spending

  • Online Gambling (connected to Gaming -loot boxes etc.)

3 Hallmarks to Addiction:

  • Consequences to life

  • Control concerns

  • Cravings

Brain reward pathway like teeter totter, watch TikTok and it goes to pleasure, then wants homeostasis through neuroadaptation and go to pain side. 

Keeps going to stay balanced… come down effect.

Initial response to pleasure gets weaker  and shorter in duration after response to pain gets stronger. 

Now using it to feel normal. 

Need more potent forms of it, anxious, depressed and cannot sleep. 

Resource: Dr. Anna Lembke

Things We Need
to Be Aware of…

  • May foster dependence and isolation

  • Always a juicier option

  • Can decrease face to face social skills 

  • Hardly off social duty

  • Attention span is decreasing

  • Online games do not enhance child development

  • We cannot unsee things!

  • Less language acquisition(Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) 

  • Creates FOMO/FOBLO/vanity metrics

  • Platforms designed for adults, not children and youth

  • May encourage perfectionism/we are the product/social comparisons/narcissism

  • Boundary concerns/sext/porn/drugs bought online

  • Keyboard courage

  • Mistakes broadcasted/permanent

  • Numbed pleasure response/hyper-reactivity/willpower erosion/reward cycle

  • Online grooming/money issues/compulsion loops

  • More time on screens, the less well-being your experience(Dr. Dan Siegel, 2023)

Childhood 2.0 is required viewing for anyone who wants to better understand the world their children are navigating as they grow up in the digital age.

Featuring actual parents and kids as well as industry-leading experts in child safety and development, this documentary dives into the real-life issues facing kids today — including cyberbullying, online predators, suicidal ideation, and more.

Chemical Connections and Technology

  • Endorphins – intense desire to be on tech as opiates are released. 

  • Norepinephrine – I can’t stop thinking about it.

  • Dopamine – excitement and reinforcement – What a rush! ADHD brain has decreased dopamine. 

  • Serotonin – impulse control and I cannot stop myself

Repeated use.. struggles to adapt to flooded dopamine, then go  below dopamine deficit state  when chronic. need drug more to stop feeling bad. Withdrawal from any addiction… insomnia, anxiety, irritability, constant craving, dysphoria, mental preoccupation with wanting to use.   Suicidal  thoughts can also be part of withdrawal.

Types of Social Cruelty that Happens Online

  • Harassment - threatening or embarrassing others

  • Impersonation - pretending to be someone else online

  • Photos - using photographs to hurt or humiliate others (ask before post and forwarding)

  • Happy-slapping - filming a bullying incident and posting it online or sharing it with others

  • Participating - forwarding along a mean text or revealing photos

Teach kids about how not to be socially cruel  and how to cope if they are treated badly online.

Empathy is down… not born with empathy.