She says this can be hard for even adults to handle. She was a middle school teacher for over a decade and now is a screen consultant. It is the dopamine you're fighting, and it's not a fair fight.ĭOUCLEFF: That's Emily Cherkin. It is you versus a hijacked neural pathway. And so she fights me.ĮMILY CHERKIN: It's not you versus your child. Samaha says this can be incredibly frustrating for a kid, even enraging. And what does dopamine do? Dopamine tells you that something important is happening, and there's a need somewhere that you have to answer.ĭOUCLEFF: In other words, I'm ripping this important thing away from my daughter that she may feel is critical to her survival. SAMAHA: The dopamine levels are still high. But the dopamine doesn't go away immediately. Then I come in and say, time's up time to go to bed, and take the screen away from her abruptly. And while her eyes fixate on the Technicolor images, dopamine bursts in her brain not once, but repeatedly, and that keeps her wanting to watch. My daughter is 7, and she was getting in the habit of watching cartoons every night. There's a lot of evidence that it's quite the opposite.ĭOUCLEFF: So let's look at what this means for kids. SAMAHA: If you talk to people who spend a lot of time shopping online or going through social media, they don't necessarily feel good after doing it. In fact, studies show that people can end up not liking, even hating, the activity they're doing. Whatever dopamine makes you want, you might not actually like it, especially over time. That's what dopamine does.ĭOUCLEFF: And here's the surprising part. So you should stay here, stay close to this thing because this is important to you. SAMAHA: Your brain tells you something important is happening. And there's, in fact, a lot of data to refute the idea that dopamine is mediating pleasure.ĭOUCLEFF: Instead, research now shows that dopamine generates another emotion - desire.ĭOUCLEFF: Whatever is triggering a big spike in dopamine pulls your attention to it. SAMAHA: There's actually little convincing data in science that that's what dopamine does. Journalists have even called dopamine the molecule of happiness. SAMAHA: In popular media, there's this idea that dopamine equates pleasure.ĭOUCLEFF: That these bursts of dopamine make you love whatever you're doing. This molecule, she says, has gotten a lot of attention recently, but there's a big misconception about it. She says these circuits and dopamine are critical to keeping your child alive.ĪNNE-NOEL SAMAHA: These mechanisms evolved in our brain to draw us to things that are essential to our survival - you know, water, safety, sex, food.ĭOUCLEFF: In other words, there's something in the sugary foods and the flickering screens that releases dopamine and tricks the brain into thinking they're essential. Anne-Noel Samaha is a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal. MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: Whether it's spending hours scrolling on social media or eating copious amounts of sugary junk food, these activities tap into ancient neural circuits and cause a surge in a molecule inside a child's brain called dopamine. For our series called Living Better, NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff found out what's happening in a kid's brain that drives this overconsumption. Neuroscientists say they know why it's such a struggle. And I will say for a lot of moms and dads, yours here included, that can feel impossible. Parents are constantly being told they have to limit how much junk food their kids can eat or how long they allow their children to watch cartoons.
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