04/04/2020
Part 3
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA USES THE BRAINS’ REWARD PREDICTION ERROR (RPE) ENCODING TO GET US HOOKED AND KEEP US HOOKED
In gambling the Reward Prediction Error of slot machine settings on its own is extremely successful to hook you to become addicted BUT all smartphone Apps make use of dopamine lab research in tandem with Artificial Intelligence smartphone usage learning to shape the schedule of rewards to the individual using the App to the person’s individual habits, desires and emotions. Much worse than co***ne!
There is no doubt that smartphones and the social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram leverage the very same neural circuitry used by slot machines and co***ne to keep us using their products gradually turning us into habitual addicts.
If you doubt the seriousness of social media addiction here is what Sean Parker the founding president of Facebook admitted when he said the social network was founded not to unite us but to distract us. According to him in designing Facebook the thought process was: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” To achieve this goal Facebook’s architects exploited one of the “vulnerabilities in human psychology namely dopamine” he explained. Whenever someone likes or comments on a post or photograph, he said, “we… give you a little dopamine hit”. Facebook is an empire of empires, then, built upon a molecule. Ask yourself why he resigned from such a lucrative company in 2005 – only because his conscious got the better of him when he realised the enormous damage caused to mankind.
A basic knowledge of the underlying brain chemical science could help you understand why you become Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) causing you instinctively to reach for you smartphone.
A basic explanation of what happens in the brain
The purpose of this blog is to give you a very basic understanding how one aspect of the extremely complex chemical processes of our brain is used abused) by developers.
Basically our brain has a series of circuits known as the reward system. They are connected to various regions throughout the brain, notably the pleasure and motivation centres.
Rewarding experiences – such as receiving a compliment, winning a game, having s*x or accomplishing a task – cause our brain to send signals via neurotransmitters (chemical messengers that either stimulate or depress neurons in the brain).
The main neurotransmitter in the reward system is known as dopamine. Dopamine, discovered in 1957, is one of 20 or so major neurotransmitters, a fleet of chemicals that, like bicycle couriers weaving through traffic, carry urgent messages between neurons, nerves and other cells in the body. These neurotransmitters ensure our hearts keep beating, our lungs keep breathing and, in dopamine’s case, that we know to get a glass of water when we feel thirsty, or attempt to procreate so that our genes may survive our death. Dopamine is thus one chemical produced by our brains that plays an important role in motivating behaviour
When enough dopamine is released due to stimulating, enjoyable activities, we experience euphoria and pleasure, and feel motivated (particularly to do that same activity again).
When drugs are taken, they create a high by increasing the dopamine that’s released in the reward system up to 10 times more than the amount natural rewarding experiences would generate. This also happens when gambling.
The Levers in Our Brains – Dopamine and social reward
The human brain contains four major dopamine pathways connecting different parts of the brain that act as highways for chemical messages called neurotransmitters. Each pathway has its own connected thinking and movement processes. The following three pathways, the (i) nigrostriatal, (ii) mesocortical and (iii) mesolimbic pathways are considered our reward pathways. Unfortunately these pathways becomes dysfunctional in most cases of addiction as they do not release the dopamine in various parts of the brain necessary to create the required activity in each area of the brain. There is a fourth tuberoinfundibular pathway which regulates the release the prolactin hormone necessary for milk production which we do not focus on in this blog.
Figure 1: Dopamine pathways in the brain.
Figure 1: Three dopamine pathways and their connected cognitive processes.
Most of your dopamine is generated deep in the midbrain, and it is released in many different areas across the brain. These areas are largely responsible for behaviors associated with learning, habit formation, and addiction.
While the reward pathways (Figure 1) are distinct in their anatomical association, all three become active when anticipating or experiencing rewarding events. In particular, they highlight the association between a particular stimulus or sequence of behaviors and the feel-good reward that follows. Every time a response to a stimulus results in a reward, these associations become stronger through a process called long-term potentiation. This process strengthens repeatedly used connections between brain cells called neurons by increasing the intensity at which they respond to particular stimuli.
Although not as intense as hit of co***ne, positive social stimuli will similarly result in a release of dopamine, reinforcing whatever behaviour preceded it. Cognitive neuroscientists clearly demonstrated rewarding social stimuli such as laughing faces, positive recognition by our peers, messages from loved ones — activate the same dopaminergic reward pathways. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative. Every notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” on Instagram, or a Facebook notification, has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx.
THE MANIPULATORS THAT DICTATE – REWARD PREDICTION ERRORS AND VARIABLE REWARD SCHEDULES
Because most social media platforms are free, they rely on revenue from advertisers to make a profit. This system works for everyone involved at first glance, but it has created a fierce race for your attention and time. Ultimately, the winners of this brutal race will be those who best use their product to exploit the features of the brain’s reward systems.
TO WIN THE BRUTAL RACE IS WHERE REWARD PREDICTION ERRORS DICTATE
Research in reward learning and addiction has recently focused on a feature of our dopamine neurons called Reward Prediction Error (RPE). These prediction errors serve as dopamine-mediated feedback signals in our brains (Figure 2). This neurological feature is something casino owners have used to their advantage for years. If you’ve ever played slots, you’ll have experienced the intense anticipation while those wheels are turning—the moments between the lever pull and the outcome provide time for our dopamine neurons to increase their activity, creating a rewarding feeling just by playing the game. It would be no fun otherwise. But as negative outcomes accumulate, the loss of dopamine activity encourages us to disengage. The challenge is how to prevent this disengagement.
Thus, a balance between positive and negative outcomes must be maintained in order to keep our brains engaged.
Figure 2:
Reward prediction and subsequent dopamine activity.
Unexpected rewards increase the activity of dopamine neurons, acting as positive feedback signals for the brain regions associated with the preceding behaviour.
As learning takes place, the timing of activity will shift until it occurs upon the cue alone, with the expected reward having no additional effect.
Should the expected reward not be received, dopamine activity drops, sending a negative feedback signal to the relevant parts of the brain, weakening the positive association.
Variable Reward Schedules Is How Social Media Apps Take Advantage Of This Dopamine-Driven Learning Strategy
As with slot machines most apps implement a reward pattern optimized to keep you engaged as much and as frequently as possible. They use Variable rewards as was introduced by psychologist B.F. Skinner in the 1930’s. In his experiments he found that mice respond most frequently to reward associated stimuli when the reward was administered after a varying number of responses despite the animal’s ability to predict when they would be rewarded. Humans are no different especially if we perceive a reward to be delivered at random, and if checking for the reward comes at little cost, we end up checking habitually (very much the same as gambling addiction and a smartphone ringtone). If you check yourself you might find yourself checking your phone at the slightest feeling of boredom purely out of habit. Program designers work very hard behind the screens to keep you doing exactly that. What separates ordinary feedback from Variable rewards is their ability to create wanting in the user. Feedback loops are all around us but the predictable ones do not create desire. The predictable response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door does not drive you to keep opening it again and again. However if there is an added variability to the experience such as a different snack which magically appears in your fridge every time you open it, Eureka the magic ingredient of intrigue is created and you will open that door like a lab mouse in a Skinner box
Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies use to hook users. Research shows that levels of dopamine surge when the brain is experiencing a reward. Introducing variability multiplies the reward effect creating a hyperactive hunting state which activates the brain parts associated with wanting and desire. Although classic examples include slot machines and lotteries variable rewards are used in habit-forming technologies and social media as well.
Remember a company that forms strong user habits enjoys several benefits to its profit. The one thing these companies do is to create associations with “internal triggers” in users’ minds. In other words they create the habit for users to come to the site without any external prompting. Instead of relying on expensive marketing or worrying about differentiation, habit-forming companies get users to cue themselves to action by attaching their services to the daily routines of users and even more scary to the emotions of their users. A cemented habit is when users subconsciously think, “I’m bored,” and instantly Facebook comes to mind. They think, “I wonder what’s going on in the world?” and before rationale thought occurs, Twitter is the answer. In other words the first-to-mind solution wins.
Randomness is at the heart of Dopamine Labs’ service, a system that can be implemented into any app designed to build habitual behaviour. In a running app, for example, this means only issuing encouragement – a good score flag, or a colourful burst of bells and light – at random intervals - rather than every time the user completes a run. “When you finish a run, the app communicates with the developers system and asks whether it would be surprising to the real time user if the system congratulated the user/player a little more enthusiastically. Dopamine Laboratories in tandem with Artificial Intelligence designers uses smartphone usage learning to shape the schedule of rewards to the individual using the App on social media to the person’s individual habits, desires and emotions. You get a customised and scary individualised reward system. The system for example might actually say: “right now he/she would see it coming, so don’t give it to him/her now. Or it might say: GO! And give the best spike possible”
You might recognise the following example of how Instagram uses the variable-ratio reward schedule where Instagram notification algorithms sometimes withhold “likes” on your photos just to deliver them later on in larger bursts. So when you make your post, you may be disappointed to find less responses than you expected, only to receive them in a larger bunch later on. Your dopamine centers have been prepared by those initial negative outcomes to respond robustly to the sudden influx of social appraisal. This use of a variable reward schedule takes advantage of our dopamine driven desire for social validation and it optimizes the balance of negative and positive feedback signals until we’ve become habitual users.
The basic explanation should suffice to make you aware of the dangers but be warned the social media App designers are using far more complex research results to exploit your natural brain chemical vulnerability to get you addicted. A seemingly innocent usage of social media that becomes far worse than co***ne addiction.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE YOU?
Smartphones and social media apps are part of our lives and there would be more of them to come so it is up to us as the users to decide how much of our time we want to dedicate to them. It is highly unlikely for the advertisement-based profit model to change and therefore companies like Facebook will continue to do everything they can to keep your eyes glued to the screen as often as possible. And by using algorithms to leverage our dopamine-driven reward circuitry they reduce our decision making and the free will of our brains - turning it actually against us. But if you want to spend less time on your phone, there are a variety of strategies such as Unhijack your mind from your phone by Tristan Harris, or Tips for building a healthier relationship with your phone and many more strategies to achieve success. Doing things like disabling your notifications for social media apps and keeping your display in black and white will reduce your phone’s ability to grab and hold your attention. Above all being mindful of your usage of the technology is the best tool you have.
So the next time you pick up your phone to check Facebook, you might ask yourself, “Is this really worth my time?”
