Comment

Comment by superkuh

"hits of dopamine" is not really how it works. Drugs like methamphetamine or cocaine directly give you "hits" of dopamine. Perceiving a stimuli through your senses does not directly manipulate the dopaminergic neuronal populations. It's just like any other stimuli where, if the stimulus is actually intrinsically rewarding, eventually the dopaminergic populations in your brain begin to associate the stimuli with potential for reward. This leads to an increased perception of the salience of that particular set of stimuli.

This is very different from cocaine which can cause humans to perceive stimuli as more important and potentially more rewarding even without any rewarding component to the stimuli at all.

Using a computer is not a drug. Stimuli on a screen are no different from stimuli from looking at something else. Using a smart phone does not give you "hits" of dopamine. Stop conflating normal environmental stimuli with drugs that act directly in the brain. It is dangerous because the way governments deal with drugs, and the very real addictions possible, is violence. Bringing violence into this non-violent non-coercive context is immoral.

parent superkuh 4 years ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton