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Key points
- Our phones are designed to give us artificial rewards to keep us engaged.
- The rewards that come from our smartphone may not be serving our long-term goals.
- Reflection can help us decide whether our phone is a tool towards something more...or a destination in itself.
As a kid, I had a beagle named Buffy. She was the nicest dog and served as a companion to a five-year-old who offered her little, if any, personal space. During our time together, I taught her a variety of tricks, as I figured out pretty early on that I had the power, through all kinds of puppy snacks, to make her do things that she otherwise would not do. I taught her all the standard tricks, including fetching different things and barking upon request. She would also go to bed on verbal command and shake hands upon request. With enough time and Italian sausages, I probably could have taught that dog to write a master’s thesis.
Humans are similar in many ways. Although not everyone writes a master’s thesis (or is even willing to shake hands), we are all motivated by rewards of one form or another. They can be as basic as homeostatic (food and water) and reproductive (sex). Other rewards are intrinsic, meaning they are unconditioned and done for the pleasure of themselves. This could be taking a class for the pure enjoyment of learning or playing basketball with a group of neighborhood kids. There is no tangible prize or payoff. You just do it for the joy of doing it. Extrinsic rewards are tangible and are usually conditioned, and often they are related to money. We go to work and are motivated—sometimes primarily, sometimes entirely—by the money we receive in compensation for our time and effort.
There is a reward pathway, known as the mesolimbic pathway, which facilitates our motivation for basic needs. Essentially, there are two experiences that we have regarding rewards. The first phase is motivation, which encourages our seeking behaviors, consisting of all the categories mentioned above. Our motivation is not only determined by outside stimuli, but also internal ones.
Our seeking behavior is controlled by dopamine, a chemical produced in our brains that is key to motivating our behavior. Dopamine has taken on a sexy persona in pop culture as the “fun feeling” we experience when we eat delicious food, have sex, or engage in a positive social interaction. As a neurotransmitter, dopamine essentially acts as a messenger that travels among pathways in our brains between cells. Known as the “feel-good” transmitter, it regulates our attention, motivation, emotion, and learning. It is the expectation of the reward that is most powerful and influences our memory. So, in essence, dopamine is important as it becomes active and motivates us when we expect to receive a reward.
Burrhus Frederick (B.F.) Skinner, a psychology professor at Harvard, was one of the most influential psychologists of the last century. Although some of his work has been challenged over the past decades, Skinner articulated that free will was secondary to reward and punishment, basically what has become called operant conditioning. Through rewards and punishments, Skinner suggested that pigeons, rats, and ultimately humans could learn to do and repeat many behaviors. Through operant conditioning, subjects make a connection between a behavior and response, whether negative or positive. Using his famous Skinner box, he would place a hungry rat or a pigeon inside a controlled container, and over time the animal would begin to associate the pushing of a lever with receiving food. Rather than studying internal thoughts and motivation, Skinner placed an emphasis on what is observable, most notably behaviors in a given environment. So essentially, actions that are followed by a desirable outcome (reward) are likely to be repeated, whereas actions that are followed by an undesirable outcome (punishment) are likely to be avoided. For example, if your spouse or partner rewards you with a foot massage for starting a running regimen, you are more likely to continue to work out (assuming, of course, that you enjoy foot massages). Conversely, if you are punished by your other half for eating cake after your doctor put you on a strict diet to lower your cholesterol, you may avoid the cake in the future (and may go running again to see if you can still receive that foot massage).
Not only is the type of reward or punishment important in influencing behavior, but when the reward or punishment is presented is also important. If a reward is given for a fixed number of actions, this is known as a fixed-ratio reinforcement schedule. For example, a real estate agent will get a commission for each house she sells. Sell a house, get a reward (compensation). If you are hired to pick apples at an orchard, you might receive a certain amount of money after picking so many pounds or baskets of apples. You know that after completing so many actions, you will receive your reward.
Contrarily, in a variable rewards schedule, the number of responses needed for a reward varies and is therefore unknown. The most common example here is slot machines. No one knows when a certain machine is going to pay out so people continue to play. People push the lever again and again, feeding it sums of money, in some cases despite mounting losses, not knowing when they will hit it big. In general, with a fixed set of actions or time, the reward is expected. Subjects may stop their behavior after the reward, knowing they received what they were motivated to do. On the other hand, a varied reinforcement, whether in number of behaviors or time, can motivate the individual to continue a behavior, as they are perpetually expecting a reward which may or may not arrive (another reminder why casinos make so much money). Despite loss after loss, players continue to play, thinking that the next pull of the lever will be the payout.
Social media operates under a variable rewards schedule. As with the pigeons and rats in Skinner’s box, we are also manipulated on social media by a variety of rewards at varying times. Like the rat that continues to press the lever to get the reward at different times, we continue to engage social media waiting for that varying reward to be granted to us. Similar to the gambler in the casino, we return to the table, in this case, social media, thinking the next time will be the reward. Social media platforms and casinos are similar in that they determine the rules of the game and dispense enough rewards at sporadic times to keep us engaged. Each time we receive some positive feedback, whether a like or a positive comment, we receive that little shot of pleasure. Dopamine kicks in to continue to reinforce the motivation for us to post new content as well as check to see if there are new likes or comments. We begin a habit of engaging social media when we post content so that we can receive attention in the form of comments and likes. If we post something that receives an enormous amount of attention or likes, we are likely going to post it again. For example, if you take a picture of yourself at the top of a mountain and it received hundreds of likes, you are likely going to continue to post pictures like that in the future. If you really are enjoying all of the attention your picture is receiving, you might even visit your profile multiple times in a day or even in an hour, monitoring how many likes you have received. The timetable for receiving rewards varies, which again, like the slot machine in the casino, keeps you playing, or in the case of social media, coming back again and again.
To get out of the habit of focusing on our phones, we should reflect upon the reward we receive from social media to determine whether we are attaining what we need from an evolutionary perspective. We are seeking rewards that help keep us alive and stay connected and our phones offer artificial rewards, usually delayed, that keep us like the rats and pigeons pulling the lever in Skinner’s box. You may find that you are getting a short-term reward through social media, such as attention in the form of likes and comments, but you need to determine whether all that time and attention is really helping you with your long-term goals.
Do you feel more connected to other people through your phone? Is it a tool that leads you to authentic interactions with others? How does your phone impact your productivity?
If you use your phone as a springboard for connecting with others in person, or even via phone or chat, then it may be a tool that leads to a more lasting reward. However, if it is a destination rather than a tool, maybe it is time to change things up a bit.
Excerpted from Numb: How the information age dulls our senses and how we can get them back.
