Concluding my first go-through of psychiatrist Anne Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation I can’t help but feel a bit let down. The expectation being that it would dig into the nature of addiction and its relationship to increasing digital existence; and maybe it did act in such a way, however it would seem more general— typical— case studies.
Largely it would stand better as a general overview of addiction and how it manifests in the modern age of all-access abundance with the closest to a screen addition that gets the most highlighted is that of a man with uncontrollable masturbatory tendencies— which as a byproduct included compulsory activities in association with Internet and TV pornography, to the degree that on the current state of the World Wide Web the gentleman would be called a ‘gooner’.
With that it presents the reader with various accounts from Lembke’s personal career in treating people with such ailments. Interwoven referential historical psychological findings from the marshmellow experiments with children to Pavlovian control in the realm of developmental psychology; to neuroscientific insights into the connection between brain chemistry and compulsory behavior relating to the pain/pleasure balance. Where it would seem the book is most interesting is in its explanations of in how many ways the mind reasserts, or attempts to reassert, equilibrium on that scale through fascinating plasticity.
As for a taste of more digital addiction it would seem more fruitful researching elsewhere. Terminologically Anne Lembke’s book is a good resource, but in researching the compulsion to screens it would seem better information can be gained elsewhere; though as such serves as a good explanatory basis of addiction.
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