Nonetheless, this dopamine meme is getting quite tiresome. Oh no! U hacked my dopamine! Let’s come to terms with the fact that self control and executive fu

Nonetheless, this dopamine meme is getting quite tiresome. Oh no! U hacked my dopamine! Let’s come to terms with the fact that self control and executive function is more than capable of overriding the urge to play video games. A bunch of VC drones throughout silicon valley are backslapping over how brilliant their neuroscience exploit payload was, because it makes their status seem so much cooler, and it’s abstract enough that it defers real responsibility. It’s the tech version of the agribusiness meme of victimization by genetic propensity for obesity. But maybe transfats and refined sugar have more to do with obesity than genes. And so, if we really thought carefully about social media and smart phones, rather than capitualting to the macguffin of dopamine, which has very little actionable meaning (in the same way the story of genetic propensity leaves the individual with little room act against a fatalistic assessment) maybe it’d be a better choice to look at real motivations, than to defer to unassailable buzzwords.