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what you want and not knowing when you will get it gamifies the process, and at the same time you’re getting intermittent hits of dopamine when you find something you like, and even higher hits when you think that maybe you found or will find something you will like.

      Understanding instant gratification

      The Internet allows for a near-instant reflex, where a click or screen tap enables you to find just what you’re looking for. There is very little lag between the impulse to look for something, play a game, or respond to a notification and the act of doing it. Keep in mind that the shorter the time between clicking and viewing the content, the more addictive it becomes. The shortened lag also produces a sense of instant or near-instant gratification and reinforces your inability to delay gratification. What this ends up looking like is that you never really have to wait for anything. Everything is instantly experienced, from a whim to satisfaction.

      Sometimes waiting can build our tolerance to address aspects of life that are not instantly satisfied or that require sustained attention and effort. At times we might even learn to endure boredom for a few short minutes, without reaching for a screen, but the Internet seems to facilitate the opposite.

      

Data seems to show that the ability of younger people to delay gratification and maintain sustained effort has waned over the last 25-plus years. Add to the equation that we’re carrying an Internet portal everywhere we go, and we can see how our smartphone erases the last vestiges of our willpower by allowing us to instantly satisfy every impulse. Every social media update or notification we receive becomes a trigger to pick up our phone and look. Every question, curiosity, or text we have becomes another glance at our phone. The problem is that it never ends, and any boundary between screen life and real-time life evaporates. There is no off button, no downtime to enjoy without the pull of our phones and the lure of that instant dopamine hit.

Did you know that the anticipation of finding or seeing something desirable or stimulating (dopamine-releasing) is stronger than the actual pleasure itself? In other words, the anticipation of seeing something you might like will produce even higher levels of dopamine. Just like in gambling, it’s the expectation or belief that you might win that is most intoxicating. So, if you post something on social media and see notifications come in, they will be more dopamine-elevating than looking at your phone and seeing that your post was liked or commented on. To your brain, being in the game is more powerful than winning the game — but winning also provides an additional secondary hit of dopamine.

      Facebook uses this anticipation factor in the form of staggered posting of your received likes or comments, and then delivering them to you randomly to keep you looking at your page over and over.

      Defining infotainment

      Early on in my work with Internet addiction, I coined the term infotainment to describe what we all do to some extent with the Internet, and especially our smartphones. Information has taken on an entertaining quality, and it can keep our eyes onscreen for content providers to data-mine and to sell us things. I would add that social media has this quality, driving our excessive use. This is new stimulation to our brain, and our limbic reward center is scanning for novel and stimulating pieces of information.

      

Digital drug delivery is very similar to how drugs are metabolized in our bodies.

This Must Be the Place: The Internet as the Car, Map, and Destination

      The Internet is a unique form of technology; it’s not just a communication or information tool, but it’s also a place to go in and of itself, as you discover in this section. Early in its history, we assumed that the Internet was like many earlier communication modalities such as the telephone, radio, movies, and television, and that the Internet would simply be another tool to connect and entertain. Although e-commerce was seen early on as a possible use for the Internet, no one could have imagined how quickly it would morph into not just a means to connect, but a destination to connect to as well.

What do I mean by a destination? The Internet is a place to virtually hang out, not just on chat sites, but to shop, trade stocks, game, gamble, or hang out on a social media site like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook. The Internet is not simply a means to an end, but it has become an end to itself. It was a new place to go, and it has only increased in this capacity to entertain and captivate. In fact, there is such a small boundary between real-time and virtual these days that many of us don’t differentiate between the time we are online and the time we are off-line (even though essentially, we are never off-line anymore with our smartphones always in our pockets).

      Unlike when the Internet made its debut and we had to dial up to get online (kind of like getting in the car to go somewhere), the Internet connection is now always live with high-speed DSL, cable, satellite, fiber-optic, and fast smartphone connections. Even a slower DSL connection is always on, and a seamless highway is always open on your desktop, laptop, smartphone, or TV. This connected factor is in part what makes the Internet so powerful — and there is something intoxicating about having the world’s information and people at your fingertips.

      Getting the word in and out: Broadcast intoxication

      One of things we discovered early on with the Internet was broadcast intoxication. This is essentially a recognition that it is stimulating to broadcast to others (as well as receive broadcasts) through various platforms, but especially on social media. In Chapter 5, I discuss in detail how social media creates an intoxicating experience when you broadcast your status, updates, posts, photos, videos, or virtually anything. Likely, this intoxication is in part caused by the anticipation of a like, comment, follow, or DM (direct message) to your post. The response by other people creates a social validation loop whereby there is a dopamine elevation from the social validation. Part of the reason for our intoxication from this validation is that we are all hardwired for social connection and social approval. The Internet, and especially social media, may capitalize on a very basic human quality: the desire to be liked and appreciated.

      Weaving a web: A story without an end

      All forms of communication and media have boundaries. A book, TV show, newspaper, magazine, movie, and even a text or phone conversation all have boundaries. They all have a beginning, middle, and end, and there are markers that tell you where you are in the entertainment, information, and communication process.

      The Internet, however, is an entirely different matter. Whenever you go online to do anything, there are no markers for where you are and how long you might be there. In fact, there is a purposeful attempt to eliminate such markers, just as a casino removes clocks or windows to obscure time passage. There are a myriad of cross links, back links, hypertexts, live photo links, click-bait, and feeds that take you down endless rabbit holes, which have you later emerging from your journey without a clue as to how this occurred. No boundaries equal no markers for time passage.

The Internet is a completely dynamic, active, and interactive system. It isn’t linear, but rather a networked and almost circular set of interactive data. It in some sense operates more like our brain than a book. But without markers for time or space, the Internet can take you on a journey far beyond where you intended to go. Obviously, online content providers and Internet companies love how this lack of boundaries creates captive audiences of you and me.

      

The Internet and digital screen technologies are amoral. They have no agenda in and of themselves, and service providers, content developers,

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