There’s a word for people who prefer phones to meeting friends: addicts | Martha Gill

HeyOver the past decades, research has undermined our cherished ideas about human exclusivity: it turns out that we share things like theory of mind, empathy, and time perception. With many other creatures.

But there is one trait of humanity that we can claim as uniquely our own. Unless captured by humans or infected with zombie parasites, animals tend to act aggressively to advance their own interests. Why is that frog, that bat, or that hummingbird behaving in such a strange way? The answer is almost always the same: to enhance its survival and the spread of its genes.

Humans are not like that. We are destroying ourselves. If David Attenborough were narrating a human life, he might watch us smoking cigarettes, stuffing ourselves with junk food, walking drunkenly towards lampposts, and struggling to come up with a smooth evolutionary explanation. Drug users, overeaters, gamblers, and adrenaline junkies all behave in ways that make their survival less likely. They keep going, even when they know full well they should stop.

These groups, compulsively close to death, make up a relatively small percentage of us: when harmful addictions spread to larger groups, this is often the case. It turns into a national crisis. But what would happen if self-sabotaging behavior suddenly became universal? What if everyone started acting against their interests at once?

This is the mystery of the moment. Evidence is mounting that a particularly dangerous habit is taking hold. as Atlantic We’re spending,’ writer Derek Thompson wrote earlier this month More and more time in isolation – A rising trend throughout the Western world. The effects are dire, and research is drawing more and more consistent connections between these things Isolation and higher mental health problemsespecially among young people.

What explains this paradoxical behavior? The decline in loafing coincides with the rise of personal entertainment and mobile phones: we seem to prefer to spend our time watching TV and browsing social media rather than socializing. Or are we? We feel better when we see others, and worse when we spend time online. Evolutionary psychologists are fond of linking our activities to our “wirings” as social animals, and say that much of what we do is ultimately related to our history of interdependent survival. It is strange, then, that our long-evolved motivations are also like that This problem does not correct.

It is possible that isolation is self-reinforcing. After being tempted to stay home safe and entertained, a vicious cycle began. The more time we spend alone, the more social skills decline, making spending time with others less beneficial. Researchers found that when scanning the brains of polar explorers who lived for several months in Antarctica Their brains have already shrunk. Even feeling a desperate need to connect can push you into what scientists refer to as a “loneliness loop.” A combination of low self-esteem, hostility, stress, pessimism, and social anxiety can make a person lonely Distancing themselves further.

Isolation may also perpetuate itself through what economists call “collective traps.” Let’s say you prefer meeting in person and don’t like social media, but all your friends think it’s a good way to stay in touch. The rational response would be to use the platforms, even if you would prefer not to. Or say you enjoy the social aspect of office life, but most of your colleagues choose to work from home. You might decide not to bother going in either: what’s the point of moving into a row of empty desks?

If enough people live in isolation, different standards may arise. I have already suggested that character exists He rejected a lot of true friendsespecially among young people. To do nothing on a Saturday night was until recently considered quite inconvenient; This was the peer pressure that pushed lazy teens off their couches and out into the world. But as more of us are isolated, the power diminishes. Now young people are happy to identify as introverts and share their social anxiety online – where others reassure them that canceling plans and missing parties is perfectly acceptable. These things exacerbate the problem of isolation, but when we look for its initial cause, the path leads us back in the direction of addiction—the common thread that links all of our most self-destructive behaviors. There is an argument to be made for framing our attachment to cell phones in the same way we treat smoking and gambling – as a problem of dependence.

Phones make us addicted to gaming and we browse using many of the same methods that casinos use to keep players feeding the slot machine. On social media, the social experience is rewarded with league tables, points, lucky streaks and dopamine-inducing rewards.

This makes us feel as if we are accumulating social influence, supported by the fact that influence is trackable – presented in the form of followers or likes. The desire for status, recognition, approval, and inclusion that once drove us to socialize has not only been displaced, but these things have been reshaped into a highly addictive game.

Policymakers object to the use of the word “addiction” to describe excessive phone use, and are reluctant to describe such a common human experience as pathological. But the evidence is mounting in the other direction. A recent summary of the best scientific evidence, covering 2,123,762 individuals from 64 countries, suggests that a quarter of people worldwide were Suffering from “smartphone addiction”. Research has found that social media overstimulates the brain’s reward center and stimulates associated pathways Compulsive dependence.

Is it time to start using the word “addiction” to describe our phone-induced isolation? It may help move us in the direction of addressing the problem. In Britain, we are increasingly open to policies that help us moderate our cravings – taxes and bans on cigarettes, sugar and fast food have proven popular and effective. Phones are different of course, you can’t turn people away from a product that is so essential to modern life. But if people want to limit the time they spend on social media, should we start thinking about ways we can help them do that?

Martha Gill is a columnist for the Observer

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