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Why Smartphones are the New Gin
It’s commonplace to observe that every new medium of entertainment is routinely decried by the older generation who claim that it will undermine youthful morals and imperil society at large. This type of criticism was leveled at the Music Hall, at radio, at moving pictures, and finally at television. By and large such criticism proved erroneous.
Today, a few of us are beginning to be concerned about the global obsession with smartphones and the various endlessly distracting apps they harbor. The question is: do we really need to be concerned?
In order to answer this question we need to consider two factors. The first is the nature of the entertainment and the second is the way in which it is consumed.
All entertainment is pleasurable because it stimulates the brain to release a little dopamine, which has (crudely) been described as the primary neurochemical reward mechanism.
From an evolutionary perspective, any behavior that increases the odds of passing on one’s genes is a behavior that is likely to be conserved, and conservation can be promoted via inducing a feeling of pleasure in the organism. As a group primate species we depend on the group for our survival and therefore fitting into the group is essential. Hence we enjoy certain social activities because this is evolution’s way of prompting us to perform…
