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comment by ThurberMingus
ThurberMingus  ·  253 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 6, 2024

Reading log last week:

Up to chapter 12 of Middlemarch.

Finished Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke. There's not nothing in there, but the book is certainly not useful.





dublinben  ·  251 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    There's not nothing in there, but the book is certainly not useful.

Thanks for the heads up. Too many non-fiction books these days would be better as a magazine article.

ThurberMingus  ·  238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The gist of the book is "dopamine is a reward signal, and anything that gives you dopamine can be addicting."

The advice is basically "just don't do it for 4 weeks. That will prove you're better off without it. Then keep not doing it forever". With a side comment about medically supervised withdrawal for some substances.

I started reading it because I noticed I reach for sweets or scroll social media when I feel crappy about anything, and it feels kinda obsessive and dopamine seeking. I was hoping there would some commentary on how to be normal when so many things online and in society are highly tailored to suck you in and give you a dopamine hit of cat pictures or righteous anger, and get you coming back. But there's really none of that.

I skimmed through "Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking" and it's a 40 year old book on cigarettes but it has more useful information about scrolling twitter when you can't sleep than "Dopamine Nation" does

dublinben  ·  231 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Figures, thank you for the summary. I attempted a 4 week digital detox after reading Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism and mostly failed because I wasn't able to come up with practical alternatives.

sogre  ·  238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It took me a couple months of cutting back from almost a pack a day before going cold turkey on smokes, and recently sugary snacks. Unprepared, I would have kept relapsing.

There is wisdom in complete deprivation for as long as you need to teach yourself again the difference between need and craving. Fasting or taking a break from the internet for a week are great as first steps at learning moderation, differentiating hunger pangs from "bored, could go for a snack" impulses. You then return, more able to control yourself.

What you're describing sounds less like dopamine seeking and more like idling or coping. If that's the case, you could substitute them for something else with little difficulty.