Dopamine: The secret force behind your scrolling habits

The chemical behind your phone habits

Dopamine — the pleasure hormone, the motivation molecule, the feel-good chemical. If you’ve ever wondered why you scroll endlessly or feel the itch to check your phone, dopamine is at the heart of it all. And tech companies have mastered the art of exploiting it.

The people behind your favorite social media apps knew exactly what they were doing. As Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president, bluntly admitted, "We need to give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while... because that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments."

In that same media conference, Parker admitted that he and Zuckerberg, thirsty for engagement, knew they were exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology, and did it anyway. “Building these applications was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” 

What is dopamine? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a central role in your brain’s reward system. It’s like a little chemical messenger being thrown around the circuitry of your brain. 

When you eat chocolate, have sex, or get a flood of social media likes, dopamine is released. And you get a sense of pleasure. Your brain learns from this, identifying the behaviors that led to the dopamine spike and motivating you to repeat them.

If we want to get really simple: dopamine is what prompts simple actions into habits.

But not all dopamine hits are created equal

Unexpected rewards: The first time we get a dopamine hit from an action, it’s unexpected — and unexpected rewards release more dopamine. This surprises the brain and acts as a learning signal: "Hey, that was good. We should remember this and do it again."

• Think of the first time you post something on social media and it goes viral or gets a deluge of likes. Your brain locks in on that feeling, pushing you to replicate the experience.

Expected rewards: But something interesting happens when we come to expect these rewards: we don’t just get dopamine after the action — we start to get a small spike in anticipation of the reward.

• So now, it’s not just the Facebook likes that give you a dopamine hit — it’s also the cues that remind you of the coming reward. For instance, the act of just picking up your phone. 

All habits are, as neuroscientist Dr. Faye Begeti puts it, simply “an automatic physical response to a situational cue.” 

Cues come in many forms — time-based, like checking your phone first thing in the morning; location-based, like craving popcorn at the theater; or internal, like scrolling through your phone when you feel bored or anxious. These cues trigger habits automatically, often without conscious thought.

• But phones are uniquely powerful — they don’t just rely on existing cues. They create their own cues through notifications, vibrations, and other triggers that create and compel habits out of you. 

Withheld rewards: When we expect a reward but don’t receive it — like posting on social media and not getting any likes — dopamine levels drop, leaving us in a deficit. This unmet expectation doesn’t make us seek out the activity less — instead, it creates a craving, driving us to chase the reward even harder, just to return to baseline.

Intermittent variable rewards: Over time, researchers and eventually tech companies learned that variability can make dopamine’s effects even more powerful. When you don’t know when or how big a reward will be, the unpredictability drives us to continue the habit even as the rewards become smaller and rarer. 

As we talked about in a previous edition, intermittent reinforcement was the casino slot machine’s secret to hooking gamblers - a secret that tech companies have since mastered. It’s why we check our phones compulsively, even when we know there’s no reward waiting for us there.

But let’s zoom out to the bigger picture: dopamine was once our brain’s way of guiding us toward what truly mattered. It helped us learn to seek out food, social connection, and reproduction by rewarding us with pleasure. 

But now, we’re surrounded by more sources of dopamine than ever — and certain actors, like tech companies, have weaponized it to create habits that keep us glued to their products.

Are habits bad? No, many are essential or good for you. But habits are powerful - research shows that of all our daily actions, 40 per cent rely on habits. If we as a society are being flooded with tech-driven habits, we have to critically assess their impact, not just accept them as a given.

There’s something else to consider — dopamine is a universal metric for addiction. So if dopamine drives both habits and addiction, where’s the line? Broadly speaking, it’s when we continue on despite substantial harm — ignoring the negative consequences.

And with phone use, the harms are starting to stack up — rising anxiety, decreased attention spans, sleep issues, and more. But is phone use truly an addiction? That’s a hotly contested debate.

In the next part of our dopamine series, we’ll dive into exactly that, and how compulsive overconsumption is changing our habits, pleasures, and the world. 

ONE BIG TOOL

Unveiling our screen time calculator

Ever wonder how much time you’ll spend glued to your screen in your lifetime? We created a screen time calculator that will tell you exactly how much.

It took some work and tinkering around, but it’s finally here.

Just enter your age and daily phone usage into our screen time calculator, and we’ll show you how many years you’ll spend in front of a screen. You’ll also get a breakdown by month and year—and see how much time you could save by cutting out just 1 hour of screen time each day.

Check it out here

TIPS & TRICKS

Breaking the dopamine habit loop

We all know the rush we get from a quick scroll through social media, but understanding how to interrupt that cycle is key to managing our tech habits. Here’s how you can disrupt the dopamine loop and take control of your tech use.

Identify your cues: Every habit starts with a cue. Your tech habits are no different. Is it boredom when you crawl into bed and reach for Instagram? Or the urge to check your phone after closing your laptop? Recognizing these triggers—whether they’re tied to time, location, or emotion—is the first step to breaking the cycle.

Create barriers: Once you’ve identified your cues, create roadblocks between the trigger and action. Move apps off your home screen, disable non-essential notifications, or place your phone out of reach during triggering moments. If you scroll Instagram right when you wake up, try putting your phone out of arm’s reach to add friction to your habit.

Make easy alternatives: Replacing “bad” dopamine hits with “good” ones, like exercise, is great advice but not always practical. Swapping a quick scroll for an hour-long workout can be too ambitious. Instead, find a middle ground—something easy like 10 pushups or a short walk. Tech companies make bad habits effortless; you need to make your positive habit just as easy.

Capitalize on big life changes: Big life events—like moving, starting a new job, or going on holiday—disrupt your routines and habits. During these changes, your brain is temporarily relearning patterns, making it a perfect time to reset.

Use this window to your advantage. Whether you’re in a new environment or adjusting to a different schedule, you can push that change in a positive direction. Since your brain is already adapting, it’s easier to form new, healthier habits.

RESOURCE & RECOMMENDATIONS

• Ever wonder how different activities stack up in terms of dopamine release? From video games and sex to meth, this chart breaks down the “highs” of various activities.

• Are phones addictive? Neuroscientist Dr. Faye Begeti doesn’t think so, but in her book, The Phone Fix, she explains how our phone habits form and stick. I pulled insights from it while writing this issue — definitely worth a read!

• This browser extension lets you remove addictive elements like recommended videos, comments, and the home feed on YouTube. It’s designed to reduce the dopamine triggers that keep you hooked on endless video content.

• Ever heard of a dopamine menu? It’s a viral trend where people divide activities into "appetizers," "mains," "sides," and "desserts" to help limit screen time and focus on healthy, feel-good habits. Want to try it? Here’s a guide to making your own.