Emily McDonald explains how your brain constantly weighs effort against reward. Social media trains it to expect cheap dopamine hits, so it stops believing bigger goals are worth the work.
The brain motivates us toward our goals based on what it thinks is worth it. It's always asking a question: is all of this work gonna be worth it? If you've ever pulled up to a coffee shop or pulled up to work or wherever, and you just sit in your car or the gym working up the courage to go in, what you're doing is actually trying to prove to your brain that the work is going to be worth it. The reason this happens is because your brain isn't sure whether the work is going to be worth the reward. Now, what happens when you are constantly checking social media, you're constantly giving yourself cheap dopamine hits, is that you are actually teaching your brain that reward costs nothing. Your brain learns dopamine's cheap. I don't need to put in any work to get dopamine. And now you've got big goals and dreams, but what happens? Your brain's like, mm, why would I wanna put in all this effort? Why would I put in all this work when I could just go get dopamine for cheap over here?
