‘Dopamine Kids’ helps parents deal with kids’ cravings for screens and sweets : NPR

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Like many parents, Michaeleen Doucleff had difficulty using her young daughter’s screens. Doucleff, author of the bestselling book Hunt, gather, parentfollowed the daily limit recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Yet when Rosy’s screen time ended each evening and Doucleff tried to put the iPad away, the 7-year-old burst into tears and often became angry.

It became a nightly battle that Doucleff dreaded, and she feared depriving her daughter of something she clearly valued. Why else would she have reacted so strongly when the iPad was taken away from her?

Doucleff tells this story in his latest book, Dopamine Kids: A science-based plan to rewire your child’s brain and take your family back in the age of screens and ultra-processed foods.

Doucleff first turned to parenting books for advice on how to loosen technology’s grip on her family and found that many contained advice backed by psychology and neuroscience research that was 25 to 50 years out of date.

A biochemist by training and a longtime science journalist (including previously for NPR), Doucleff immersed herself in ongoing research to understand how to reduce her family’s dependence on technology and ultra-processed foods. What she discovered was a revelation: despite previous scientific theories, dopamine does not give us pleasure. Since the 1990s, neuroscientists have accumulated evidence debunking this idea. Instead, dopamine makes us to want.

Rosy didn’t like his videos, Doucleff realized. She also didn’t like the ultra-processed Ritz crackers she asked for at the grocery store. Rosy was caught in a feedback loop. The more she watched and ate snacks, the more she wanted to watch and eat.

Author Michaeleen Doucleff and her daughter Rosy.

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There is a second, distinct system in our brain that makes us as what we want and we feel satisfied when we get it, Doucleff told NPR. Modern technology divides systems, so we always want more, even when whatever we’re doing — whether it’s scrolling TikTok or eating chips — doesn’t bring us much, if any, pleasure.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that kids are on screens because it makes them happy and brings all this joy and fun into their lives,” Doucleff said. The data told a different story. “In many ways, it robs us of the fun in our lives.”

Doucleff decided to replace this constant need in Rosy’s life – and in her own – with contentment and joy, and she hopes her book can help other parents do the same.

“I really want to give parents these tools that actually work with these products and don’t just create more difficulty and burnout,” Doucleff said. “That’s how I felt. I felt like when I was following the advice, we were struggling every day. There were conflicts every day to get off the screen, to eat the right foods.”

Doucleff spoke with NPR about his new book.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How does technology hijack the brain’s dopamine system?

Tech companies have a whole host of tricks and tools they use. Many of them come from the gaming industry. In the 2000s, the tech industry began to take some of the ground. [these] and apply them to games and social media platforms with the explicit goal of keeping kids on devices for as long as possible.

The heart of the algorithm is that the application, the game, feels like it’s going to meet a child’s basic needs. There is very good evidence that children use social media to try to satisfy their need to belong, hence this very big promise. What researchers are showing very clearly today is that social media will never meet a teenager’s need for belonging and social support. It makes them feel like they are. That’s the trick. This gives them the feeling of progress. We get more dopamine when we feel like we are making progress toward our goal. Oh, if I just work a little harder, won’t I? But in reality, it never does.

It makes me think of being trapped in the Infinite Scroll and thinking, “Wait, why do I keep doing this?” But then you keep doing it.

Yes, exactly. What happens when you’re lost in the endless scrolling where you’re like “do it again, do it again, do it again”, it’s just dopamine. What happens is that your desire to do the activity, your desire to do it, is much greater than the pleasure you get from it.

How do ultra-processed foods fit into this context?

Ultra-processed foods promise to meet a fundamental need in our lives: food, calories, nutrition. If you look at them – it’s a big class – a lot of them are skeletal versions of food. They are clearly designed not to satisfy us. The industry has spent decades creating foods that make you want to eat them and that you can’t stop eating them. There is plenty of evidence that these foods cause us to overeat. And just as social media prevents us from pursuing real friendships, or can do so over time, these ultra-processed foods actually prevent us from eating whole, minimally processed foods because we don’t have an appetite for them.

Some parents think that if their children are bored, they will find something else to do. We’ll just send them outside and take them off their screens, and that will take care of everything.

Yes, I call it the boredom fallacy. Many parenting experts tell us they need to learn how to deal with boredom. I thought that about myself too. I was like, “Oh, I just need to go out and be bored.” But I can tell you from personal experience that if you’re used to being on a screen, you’re used to being on your phone or an iPad, and you get snatched away and say, go sit there. It’s a horrible feeling. You have all this dopamine telling you, “Go do these things. I want this. “It’s miserable, and I think the kids hate it, so they fight back. Then, they want the screen more.

What behavioral psychology tells us that works in these situations is that if you want to remove something and you want it to go away successfully, you have to replace it with something desirable, engaging, and interesting to the child.

If I say, “OK, Rosy, we won’t have any screens tonight. Instead, I’m going to teach you something you’ve been dying to do. In our case, it was cycling alone through the neighborhood to the market. Now I use a tool similar to that of the tech industry because I take into account his basic needs – adventure, autonomy, physical exercise – and I use that to get him excited about something off-screen. The result was incredible. She now bikes to piano and soccer practice and loves being outside. Over time, you teach the child’s brain to start seeking and wanting these off-screen activities, and it weakens its desire for on-screen activities.

So you’re exploiting a child’s motivation?

Yes, exactly. Science tells us. The dopamine system is really flexible in humans. Like super flexible. We can put whatever we want in this reward pocket if we tie it to a need. And so, we can, as parents, replace screens or ultra-processed foods with something that actually does the child good and benefits them.

Can the same approach work to reprogram the brains of adolescents who grew up with technology and ultra-processed foods?

The human brain is super flexible, even when you’re old like me, but it’s even more flexible when you’re young. Obviously, teenagers can reprogram their brains. Their brains are still developing and we can change our habits at any age, so never think it’s too late to help a child change their habits.

The other thing that I found really fascinating in my research is that teenagers actually want help from their parents. They tell psychologists and researchers they want advice. They want safeguards. They are afraid to ask their parents for help because they don’t want their parents to just take the phone away from them. It needs to be more collaborative. Instead of the parent saying, “We’re doing this,” you should instead say, “Look, I want help with my own screen use. Can we do this together?

Alicia Garceau is a health reporter and National Press Foundation Rare Disease Reporting fellow based in Indianapolis.