Why Are Teens So Addicted To Their Phones?

We're living in a new era of 24/7 dopamine, where we're obsessed with our phones. This, in turn, is lowering our oxytocin levels and a leading cause of modern anxiety.

Dopamine evolved as a chemical that increased a few times a day when we found food, built shelter, and started fires, etc. Dopamine now increases hundreds of times a day in every moment we interact with our phone. This is causing us to become unbelievably addicted and making real-life connection harder to achieve, which has in turn created an insidious cycle of more phone use.

For example constantly checking your phone in the evening (dopamine) instead of spending time engaging with your family (oxytocin).

Every time we choose dopamine over oxytocin, our oxytocin levels drop and low oxytocin levels cause our brains to feel anxious, fearful, and restless.

How to break the addiction? Instill slower, phone-free, with extended moments of natural relaxation — being outside, with people, reading or setting and accomplishing goals — to name a few.

This can be done! But it likely takes enforcement — set some phone free hours for your entire family and live by them. In doing so, you’ll actually be living.

Mike Spivey