by Nasir Hamid Khan
Digital addiction threatens mental health, relationships, and cognitive development, especially in children. It exploits vulnerabilities via algorithms, fosters overconsumption, and feeds surveillance capitalism. Awareness, regulation, and mindful usage can counter these effects, fostering a balanced relationship with technology for societal betterment.
They say the test of a civilisation is the way that it cares for its helpless members for we do not exist apart from a society. It is our extended mind and body reflecting our shared values and beliefs. As the name suggests, Common Interest Conversations is a programme designed to promote conversations on a deeper and more meaningful level on various issues and challenges confronting our society and collectively searching for ways and means to address them.
They say the betterment of society is not a job to be left to a few; it is a responsibility to be shared by all. I sincerely hope that by the end of this session, after we have exchanged our views and opinions on the subject, we also realise that there is much to be collectively done to address issues of common interest. This realisation is accompanied by a serious responsibility to play our part as individuals who contribute to the best of our capabilities and work together as a team for the betterment of society.
Today’s’ conversation, is on the subject of Digital Addiction. I would start by acknowledging that a reasonable degree of dependence on technology is now a fact of life. It provides incomparable levels of information, convenience and support in our daily lives. The level of this dependence varies from person to person but the problem starts when dependence changes course and becomes an addiction which disrupts lives. Therefore, it becomes necessary to distinguish healthy usage and problematic usage.
Humanity invented fire, realised its dangers and concluded that it was a good servant but a bad master. The pattern of the present addiction indicates that we are wired to be oblivious to its dangers till we are burned out.
Brain versus Machine
How does one control technology that has crept its way deep inside our minds? Let us compare the hardware: On this side of the screen we have our 1.7 million years old brain and on the other side of the screen there is the super computer-aided and assisted by fantastically paid professionals – mathematicians, engineers, psychiatrists – continuously 24×7 scanning – or if one borrows terms they use – brain mining and brain farming – the deepest parts of our minds to exploit our vulnerabilities. The mind is bombarded by a never-ending stream of data, videos, and messages, notifications that it is not equipped to process or handle. No wonder the human brain is overwhelmed.
As one examines this subject, questions that come to mind are whether there is reason to be concerned; is there reason to be worried; is there reason to be scared. If you ask me, I would answer yes to all the three questions. More than concern and worry, I think I am scared.
After all this progress and advancements:
Are we happier as individuals or are we left vacant and empty;
Are our relationships deeper and more meaningful than before?
Has creativity, purpose and intellect improved?
Would our next generation be a majority of brain-damaged junkies controlled by vested interests and Artificial Intelligence?
During our conversation, we shall be searching for answers to these and other questions that may arise.
An Ignored Addiction
It appears that the signs and symptoms of addiction are mostly ignored as the user is unaware of his condition as he continues to be manipulated through high-tech algorithms and psychology to remain in that condition. Care is taken to make it appear that it is the user who is making all the choices which is not true, as it transpires that the brain already stands hijacked.
During the course of my preparation for this event, I repeatedly came across a name – Dr Anna Lembke. She is a renowned American Psychiatrist, a world-leading expert on addiction, the Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University and the author of three important books on the subject. She also appears as an expert witness in ongoing court cases against various tech companies and has done commendable work for more than 25 years on the subject. According to her, “The thing about addiction, the way it changes our brains – is that thing which is initially pleasurable and has us engaging in approach behaviours, ultimately puts us in a dopamine deficit state such that where we want to continue to do that behaviour not to feel good but to stop feeling bad. That is one of the fundamental things about the disease of addiction.” This behaviour should sound familiar.
Thinkers say that “Early Childhood Education is the key to the betterment of society”. In light of this, what I am going to say the issue assumes much importance.
Structural Brain Damage
Although digital addiction negatively impacts the brains of both juveniles and adults, its alarming impact on the brains of children and adolescents deserves to be our primary focus for the reason that it results in irreparable damage to their minds as these are the formative years when the brain develops.
I am sharing the conclusion of an important research paper: “In conclusion, digital addiction in children and adolescents leads to structural brain changes, including reduced grey and white matter volume in various regions involved in executive function, reward processing, and sensorimotor activities, impacting cognitive capabilities and contributing to problematic smartphone use, internet gaming disorder and internet addiction”.
Here, I would pause for a moment and toss a question to our participants to process whether this structural brain damage could also be a contributing factor to the sharp rise of drug addiction in Kashmir.
Studies have revealed the negative impact of digital addiction on children and adolescents from multiple aspects i.e. physical, emotional, cognitive, and brain structure and function. Studies have also shown that digital addiction could lead to impairments in vision and hearing and an increased risk of obesity. It negatively impacts children’s social skills and social relationships, showing more aggressive behaviour and a high frequency of depression and anxiety. Negative impact is also shown in children’s attention, memory and problem-solving skills. EEG studies show alterations in the reward processing system and cognitive control ability of digitally addicted adolescents.
The Dopamine Rush
The alteration of the reward processing system of the brain should concern us more. In her book, Dopamine Nation, Dr Anna calls smartphones the “modern-day hypodermic needle”. We turn to it for quick digital hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet. Every spare second is an opportunity to be stimulated, whether by entering the Tik Tok vortex, scrolling Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, swiping through Tinder or bingeing on porn, online gambling and e-shopping.
In addition to compromising our attention spans, Dr Anna has observed that our obsession with instant gratification means we are constantly living in our limbic brain, which processes emotions, rather than in our pre-frontal cortex, which deals with future planning and problem-solving and is important for personality development.
Apart from the addiction part, there are various problems associated with the exposure of kids and teens to this most powerful information platform. Kids are more sensitive to comparisons, validation and influence from their peers. And their brains’ pre-frontal cortex – which allows planning, delayed gratification and awareness of future consequences – is not yet fully connected to its reward pathways. Have we failed to protect our young? Are we a brain-damaged generation trying to protect its future generation from a threat which is unprecedented in the history of mankind?
Surveillance, Control
The other deeply connected topic I would like to touch upon is Surveillance Capitalism and Planned Obsolescence.
Everything you do online is being watched, tracked and measured. Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded – every image you look at and how long you look at it. They know when we are lonely when we are depressed, they know what we are doing late at night. They know the entire thing. They know our personality type, whether I am an introvert or an extrovert, and what kind of neuroses I have. They have more information about us than has ever been imagined in human history. It is unprecedented.
A lot of people have the misconception that it is our data being sold but it is not in their business interest to give up our data. It is what they do with the data? They build models that predict our actions. This model once they have it, can predict the kinds of things that a person does. They can predict what kind of videos you will keep watching, and what kind of emotions tend to trigger you.
The tech companies have three main goals. The first one is the engagement goal, to drive up your usage, to keep you scrolling, to keep you engaged on screen. Then there is the growth goal, to keep you coming back and inviting as many friends, and getting them to invite more friends. And finally, there is the advertising goal to ensure that as long as this is happening they are making as much money as possible from advertising. Each of these goals is powered by algorithms whose job is to figure out what to show you to keep these numbers going up. This is where the billions and trillions of dollars are coming from.
All About Money
If you are sceptical about this, as most people are, we need to look at some numbers. Global production due to e-shopping has hit phenomenal levels, to the extent that there is a visible impact on climate change and an imminent threat to the planet itself. Are we contributing towards our demise?
Companies remain to be concerned with two things only – sales and profits. As per estimates, a hundred billion garments are produced in a year for a world population of eight billion, 68,733 phones are produced each hour 13 million phones are being thrown away every day, 12 tons of plastic is being produced every second, and 2.5 million shoes are produced each hour. Companies are making products with shorter life spans. The life of bulbs was reduced from 2500 hours to 1000 hours.
New models of phones are being introduced every year to push customers to discard the ones purchased a year or so before. Products are engineered in a way that repairs are costlier than buying a new model. Earphone jacks are fused to force customers to purchase AirPods and other Bluetooth devices which have a life span of 18 months to two years. Planned Obsolescence has become a cornerstone for successful business the world over. Releasing a continual stream of new products will encourage consumers to discard old ones. This replacement cycle is fundamental to their growth.
This has resulted in wasting and dumping of products on a scale never seen before. This waste is being swept under the carpet but its effects have begun to show. You can take a look around your home and office. The number of discarded TV sets, printers, chargers, toys, garments and footwear would be taking up considerable space. But this is nothing when compared to the dumping of waste products being done on an industrial scale globally. Returns including those from Amazon accounted for five billion pounds of landfilled waste in the US alone. It is contributing to climate change. Some consequences and costs require to be thought about.
The Richie Rich Stories
A perusal of the latest Forbes Billionaires List shows that businesses directly and indirectly connected with digital platforms have swept 15 out of the top 20 positions. They are the richest human beings in human history.
Elon Musk 432.6 Bn
Jeff Bezos, Amazon 243.8 Bn
Larry Elison, Oracle 216.9 Bn
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook 213.0 Bn
Larry Page, Google 163.0 Bn
Sergey Brin, Google 155.5 Bn
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft 125.9 Bn
Micheal Dell, Dell Tech 116.1 Bn
Amancio Ortega, Zara 115.6 Bn
Rob Walton, Walmart 111.4 Bn
Jim Walton, Walmart 110.2 Bn
Bill Gates, Microsoft 106.5n
Alice Walton, Walmart 102.4 Bn
Mukesh Ambani 95.9 Bn
Carlos Slim, Telecom 76.7 Bn
Sitting comfortably at No 4, is Mark Zuckerberg with a modest net worth of 213 billion dollars. A closer examination, however, reveals that this is only his personal worth. He has a controlling share in Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Whatsapp, the worth of which, according to one estimate is 1.478 trillion dollars.
Figuring at serial numbers 13, 14, and 17, Walmart holds three separate places in the Forbes top 20 prompting me to take a closer look at their financials. In the year 2024, online sales accounted for 65.4 per cent of their total sales in the United States. To give you a better idea of scales, the United States has 276.14 million smartphone users. India, at 1.01 Billion has almost four times that number. Therefore, it is only reasonable to assume that we would be the primary target of the digital onslaught. Could there be a digital version of exploitation and slavery that we are not yet fully aware of?
So, surveillance capitalism and planned obsolescence provide us with some more food for thought.
Monitor The Use
Now leaving aside its darker side, we also need to appreciate that going online provides a wealth of opportunities for education and enrichment for us and our children. We need to modify our phone use, step-by-step. Experts advise to think of it more like going on a diet. Just as you still need to eat, you probably still need to use your phone for work, school, or to stay in touch with friends. Our goal should be to cut back to more healthy levels of use. The main message is to stop hunting for pleasure all the time. It is too much of a good thing.
We can beat our digital dependencies by embracing a more monastic mindset. Pleasure-seeking vices need to be replaced by painful pursuits. Dr Anna advises that it is natural to pursue enjoyment, but our consumer culture has created an expectation that life is supposed to be so fun. And really, it is not.
Life is a slog and if we could admit that and take comfort in knowing we are not alone in the day-to-day struggle, paradoxically, we would be happier. It is a sobering thought because the bounty of high-octane stimuli enables us to instantly boost our mood – something previous generations couldn’t do to the same degree – we are under the impression we can fully control when we feel joy. In reality, our drip-fed, tech-fuelled bliss is fleeting, and often less blissful. “Doing things that are hard is one of the best ways to pursue a life worth living because the pleasure we get afterwards is more enduring”. We tend to forget that earned highs are that much sweeter.
(The author is the Secretary of Srinagar’s oldest Amar Singh Club and these remarks were the opening of the long conversation on Digital Addiction: An Invisible Epidemic, which the Club hosted on January 23, 2025.)
