Is Internet addiction actually dangerous in the long term with psychological effects lasting throughout life? And are parents harming their children by allowing excessive exposure to online experiences?
Research from the University of Singapore published in Academia has suggested that overexposure to the Internet and gaming produces long-lasting effects on the serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain. These chemicals influence mood, and sense of self-worth and are highly affected by stimulus – such as repetitive activities or drugs such as cocaine and MDHA.
This is happening to children at an age when their neurological synaptic systems are developing a relationship with the world around them.
One psychologist in a recent paper in the Academia app has gone so far as to say that parents might be actually abusing their children by not restricting their access to unlimited online activities, especially gaming. Moreover given that the games industry is becoming one of the biggest industries worldwide-more so than Netflix Disney and Hollywood combined, the gaming industry is actually a selective participant in this process. A thread in Telegram compares the gaming industry to the cartels of Colombia, bating users into a psychologically dependent relationship with their products.
The effects of excessive Internet and gaming activity are hard to measure because the effects have to be evaluated in the long term, over decades. Central to this issue are the differences between generations. The baby boomers mostly born after the first Second World War belong to the age before digital technology and knew of a world without computers and phones. Generation Z grew into digital technology as memory and digital capacity increased. Generation X know little of the world without this technology. And as for the children born after 2010 known as Generation Alpha, their world, their life experience, is totally defined by digital technology.
The correlation between pleasure and visual stimulus is triggered by the same mechanisms used in gaming and internet trawling of shopping sites. Much of the darker. side of the internet, however, has a moral dimension which fits into society’s opprobrium and negative judgement values. Gaming is seen as entertainment and so morally neutral, even though violence plays a far greater role in games made readily available to children and adolecsents that it does in porn for adults. An accusation made about porn is that it desensitises people to vanilla sex, the stuff of everyday life. Whereas games often reward violence with a higher game ranking. Which is the more pernicious?
When in doubt blame the parents
The report highlights a trend in parents assuming that by letting their children become immersed in digital technology they will learn the necessary skills required for the new age when they enter the workforce. Exposure to the internet is good for them. They see the elder generations who often struggled with adapting to digital technology and were excluded from the workforce. The millennials are determined that their children should be prepared for the brave new world of infinite technology.
It is estimated that 30% of Internet users are under the age of 16 and want to remain connected to the Internet day and night. Lack of connectivity brings a sense of anxiety and missing out on something, and that the world is passing them by if they are not available on their social apps. Cases of ADHT are increasing. While some psychologists put this down to the recognition of a mental condition that was previously unrecognised, others correlate the increase in ADHD to gaming and Internet programs such as TikTok.
Dopamine receptors in the brain have been shown to be reduced after excessive internet use,similar to drug use. Gaming produces dopamine release in the limbic area of the brain which also stimulates reward dependence. Most online activity releases dopamine into the brain’s pleasure centres, developing obsessive pleasure-seeking behaviour.
Reports from the UK suggest that immersion into Internet reality has resulted in stunted emotional growth. Adolescents reach adulthood unprepared for the reality of the world around them because they’ve been exposed to a fictitious digital reality that does not correspond to the reality of everyday society. They are not ready for jobs not related to anything digitally related. They may be absolute geniuses on social media, but many have not actually had the discipline to learn the skills of the workplace.
The human mind will become digital.
With digital capacity increasing exponentially in speed over the next 10 years, and transmission data increasing into gigabytes per second, the introduction of the metaverse will likely blur the differences between virtual and non-virtual realities, with all the mental health challenges that ensue. This comes with its own perils.
A counterargument is that the world before the arrival of digital technology was very much characterised by war and violence, male supremacy and genocide. Perhaps a virtual world can raise human consciousness and elevate our species to a better place of hybrid realities of equal opportunities. Only future generations will be able to testify.
