The widespread use of digital technology, including smartphones, video games, and social media, has become a significant area of study for social scientists, neurologists, and many other researchers. The questions most often asked usually centers around what this addiction is doing to us as a society. How is it impacting our relationships, our emotional and spiritual well-being, our ability to complete tasks, and even our brain chemistry? When these experts discuss the impact of this technology on society one theme recurs again and again: dopamine.
When it comes to our understanding of the brain, there are still a lot of unknowns. People disagree and outdated information morphs into disinformation. What we currently know about dopamine is no different. But to the best of my ability, this is the consensus:
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical released within the brain, often described as the "this feels good and I want more of this" hormone. While frequently called the pleasure or reward chemical, it is more accurately understood as the wanting chemical. When you anticipate something good—like a meal at a fancy restaurant, the possibilities of a first date, or validation for the work you have been doing—your brain releases dopamine. Its core function is to focus and motivate one to seek rewards, anticipating the pleasure that may come rather than giving pleasure when it does. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Let me illustrate this out of my own experience.
As some of you know, we have had the privilege of taking our family vacations at Disney World in Florida. Planning a trip to Disney is a long process, usually spanning over the course of a full year. I begin by nailing down a date. This involves figuring out the girls' school calendar, Heather's work availability, researching historical patterns in weather and crowds, and putting together a budget.
About ten months before the trip, I start tracking flight schedules and prices, regularly checking with various airlines, waiting for a price I can live with. During this period, I also narrow down where we plan to stay. Disney World has 22 hotels, each unique in theme, location, and price.
Six months out, I begin booking restaurant reservations. In true American style, Disney World has over 400 dining options ranging from one of the world’s most renowned restaurants to kiosks that offer only pretzels and bottled water. Both the hotels and restaurants are subject to availability, and the most popular choices fill up within minutes of the reservation window opening.
It is impossible to book everything at once. I continue to monitor the airfares, restaurant reservations, or the chance to stay at a different hotel because someone else has cancelled their reservation. As the trip comes closer, and the hotel and restaurants I wanted have been found, the overall picture of the week comes into focus and I am able to spread sheet detailing a step-by-step, micromanaged plan broken down into 10-minute increments of when and where we'll be at any given time.
I know this may seem absurd to many people, including Heather, but each step of this planning provides a steady supply of anticipation and dopamine reward throughout the year. Other Disney planners say the same thing: planning the trip is half the fun. Every time I look for a flight, search for that hard-to-find reservation, and map out which ride we'll go on first, then second, and then third, I am thinking about all the wonderful experiences that come with a well-planned trip.
When the trip actually begins, I have a little bit of melancholy leaving the house and heading to Orlando, because, for me, the anticipation of the vacation is now over. All year this activity has provided a regular release of dopamine, motivating me to put in the time and effort needed to plan a great vacation for my family
Part of my struggle, and that of so many people today, is that we have become relatively desensitized to dopamine. Platforms like TikTok and Facebook Reels have built-in algorithms specifically tailored to highjack our dopamine system, allowing its release with little effort and in rapid succession.
Another example can be seen in online gambling. In 2025, almost half of all men aged 18 to 49 have an active online sports-book account. These sites not only allow betting from the comfort of home, but in-game, real-time options to wager on everything from which basketball player will score the next basket to what pitch a baseball pitcher throws next. Instead of placing a bet on the winner or loser of a game, with the outcome hours away, prop betting can be done over and over during a single game with the outcome coming just minutes or even seconds after the bet is placed
The smartphone addiction is akin to the needle that delivers heroin into the blood stream of a drug user. The high experienced by algorithms that deliver individualized content in an endless quantity is hard to resist. TikTok never runs out of videos and you never reach the end of a Facebook feed. But like the crash after a drug wears off, we generally feel worse after extended use of social media. The brain is plunged into a dopamine-deficient state as it attempts to adapt to the loss of high dopamine levels caused by social media engagement. And repeated exposure to the same or similar stimuli ultimately creates a chronic dopamine-deficient state, wherein we're less able to experience pleasure.
Returning to Disney World travel, Heather and I have gone on several trips where she attends a medical conference for part of the day, leaving me to my own devices. One of the things I used to love doing during this time was finding a space middle of a theme park and people-watching. Every emotion you can imagine is happening all around you: wide-eyed children unable to contain their excitement; couples in love; and elderly people on their scooters; parents melting down, overtired toddlers screaming, and frustrated people yelling at the staff. Throw in 25-degree weather in February, this should be one of the best ways to spend a morning. But on the last trip, I realized I had difficulty finding this stimulating enough to stay more than ten minutes. And I ended up back in the hotel room, on my phone, waiting for Heather to get back from her meeting.
This isn't normal.
A young man who can no longer enjoy sports without the extra stimuli of concurrent gambling, who would rather win their prop bet than have their beloved team win, is not normal. Close friends sitting together, all staring at their phones instead of talking or even looking at each other, is not normal. Scrolling through hours of short TikTok videos and yet being unable to sit through a full-length movie is not normal. But it is commonplace. And, as with all things in these conversations, it negatively impacts today's youth the most.
I say all of this tonight because when we begin to understand the problem, we can start working towards solutions. This insight into how dopamine works helps us to see how big corporations are leveraging that information for profit, despite being fully aware of the enormous damage to the well-being of our children and ourselves. This should encourage us to be discerning in how we support tech companies such as Facebook, TikTok, and X, ultra-processed food companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Kraft, and programs that promote sports gambling sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings. It is one of the reasons I’m moving the online presence of The Abbey away from Facebook and into its own webpage.
Is there an antidote to our addiction to social media?
Writing for the Stanford Medical Journal, researcher Bruce Goldman says this:
Yes, a timeout — at least for a day. But a whole month is more typically the minimum amount of time we need away from our drug of choice, whether it's heroin or Instagram, to reset our dopamine reward pathways.
A month-long dopamine fast will decrease the anxiety and depression that social media can induce, and enhance our ability to enjoy other, more modest rewards again.
If and when we return to social media, we can consolidate our use to certain times of the day, avoid certain apps that suck us into the vortex and prioritize apps that connect us with real people in our real lives.
I believe this is an opportunity and a responsibility for religion to have an enormous positive impact on society. The Church needs to be paying attention and turn its focus to what is actually destroying us. Enough of the culture wars. And in doing so, I can think of no institution better positioned to be part of the solution.
It starts with the fundamental belief is that God wants us all to have life and live it in abundance. This includes the sacred vision of interconnectedness, that the well-being of your life is intrinsically tied to the well-being of my life, and the lives of our neighbours, strangers, and enemies. All lives matter to God.
Any company, intentionally profiting from being anti-life, is what Jesus refers to as thieves, bandits, and wolves. There is an organizing principle and vision within religious institutions that can empower it’s communities to fight back.
Religions have always met in person, in communal gatherings. Such gatherings can be that mandatory break from societal-driven rapid dopamine releases. It can also be that time to organize a coherent plan of resistance, both from within and outside these walls. Instead of one individual speaking out, it’s becomes multiple voices speaking as one. And when other churches and other religions speak out, then you have a moment that government cannot ignore. And that movement will join the multitude of voices coming parents and grandparent, educational and medical communieis. And that is when real tangible change will happen, I’m getting a dopamine rush just thinking about it!
But it will always begin with me and you. Spiritual practices including prayer, meditation, sabbath observance, temperance, and accountability to God and each other are all formational tools at our disposal. I believe there is an opportunity for the Church to have an enormously positive impact on society, and it can give what we do in places like this a greater purpose.
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