Parents are always told to reduce the amount of junk food consumed by their children or to monitor the amount of time their kids spend in front of the screen. Neuroscientists know that this is such a struggle, and they suggest that it might be due to brain activities that drive this overconsumption. Activities such as scrolling on social media or eating a large number of sweets are linked to ancient neural circuits, which cause an upsurge in a molecule inside the brain called dopamine.
What Does Dopamine Do to Human Brain?
According to neuroscientist Anne-Noel Samaha from the University of Montreal, neural circuits and dopamine play a vital role in keeping a person alive. Samaha explains that these mechanisms were developed in our brains to lead us to essential things such as water, food, and safety for survival. In short, flickering screens and sweets contain elements that release dopamine and deceive the brain into thinking they are essential.
Dopamine, popularized as a happiness molecule, has recently gotten attention because it is connected to pleasure. However, a recent study suggests little data supports the role of dopamine in the human brain. It was found that dopamine generates desire and makes people want things for themselves. Whatever triggers a large amount of dopamine gets a person's attention. As a result, the brain tells the person that something important is happening and that they should stay close to it.
The surprising part is that whatever dopamine makes a person want, they might not like it over time. For instance, people who spend a lot of time browsing social media do not necessarily feel good after this activity.
How is it Related to Parenting?
The same scenario happens when a parent struggles to stop a child who has spent much time in front of the screen. While their eyes fixate on the images, dopamine burst in their brain repeatedly and keeps them wanting to watch more. When the parents make them stop and take the screen away from them abruptly, it becomes impossible to tame them because the dopamine does not go away instantly.
At this point, the dopamine levels are still high, and tell the child that something important is happening. It will seem like the parent is ripping away this important thing the child feels iscritical to their survival. This can be frustrating or even enraging for a child, making them fight their parents. Scientists explain that this scenario is not a fight between the parent and the child but rather an unfair battle between the parent and a stolen neural pathway.
Psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke from Stanford University suggests how to handle this situation easily. She said that a healthy source of dopamine can be obtained from activities that will make a person feel better after doing it. About the things that can make a child feel worse afterward, parents are warned to limit the quantity and frequency of such activities and foods. This practice can be done by creating microenvironments which refer to the places in the house where the children cannot access the device or food.
Meanwhile, neurobiologist Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy from Northwestern University encourages playing adventure video games that require many cognitive skills. She said she does not feel the same about games requiring advanced social and language skills.
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