Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

by Anna Lembke

The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.

David paused. “In the end, it came down to comfort. It was easier to take a pill than feel the pain.”

Neil Postman, the author of the 1980s classic Amusing Ourselves to Death, wrote, “Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials.”

We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.

Science teaches us that every pleasure exacts a price, and the pain that follows is longer lasting and more intense than the pleasure that gave rise to it. With prolonged and repeated exposure to pleasurable stimuli, our capacity to tolerate pain decreases, and our threshold for experiencing pleasure increases.