Trigger Warnings #5
Microdosing Social Media
CW: drug use, addiction, personality disorders, outdated mental health language
This article is part of the Trigger Warnings series, examining environmental factors that effect mental health. To get early access to the next articles as they are released, please support Ollamh Counselling through their Patreon. All articles will become available to everyone through Medium, in the interests of accessibility.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, and neither have I been trained in a medical field. As counsellors, we merely explore curiously the inner & outer worlds of our clients, and are not present to offer prognosis or diagnosis of any psychological ailments. In this regard, this essay is not an answer to a question, but the question itself: if microdosing on psychedelics benefits mental health, what can be said of social media?
It Wasn’t Like This In the Old Days
Whenever I have stepped away from social media, I have seen a marked benefit to my mental health. This piece, however, will not be about how we should cease all activities in the social media sphere; there are many debates as to the benefits of shirking social media completely, to return to ‘analogue’ methods of communication and community, but I find them coming short as to the greater picture. Even Gabor Maté promotes the notion that the use of social media is creating a quasi-/pseudo-community[1], where our ‘friends’ and our ‘likes’ are meaningless, and although I do not disagree with his sentiment, paradoxically, if it had not been for social media I would not have found the communities I needed after my surgery, or during COVID-19. There is a greater discussion to be had that moves beyond the age-old paradigm that new technologies are always a hindrance to social growth. Kindle is going to destroy books. TV is going to kill radio. The piano is going to ruin violinists. Since the dawn of time, we have spoken of the latest fad, trend, or technological improvement as the harbinger of the end times, and although many of these things have come with dangerous, even malicious, effects, there is more to be said & done about TV license fees, experimental piano music, and, of course, social media.
Allow me to briefly illustrate the corners of this debate:
§ We require social media to connect to communities we ordinarily couldn’t before
§ Social media — and the internet — has created a new Library of Alexandria
§ Social Media companies are unethical, and the use of them is therefore also unethical[2]
§ Social media destroys the notion of the community
As you can see, some are plainly paradoxical, and others come laden with moral obligations many of us cannot sustain. I am currently writing this article on a laptop I know contains zinc. Much of the zinc in our phones, laptops, and (perhaps even) kitchen appliances are mined by children in the Congo[3]; if the argument is that we are not meant to utilise technologies that support an industrial complex reliant on unethical (if not downright evil) practices, then I should throw this HP laptop out of the window[4]. But if I am to contact JSA about my next benefit payment, apply for jobs, or even perform my online activism, I require this device. Much as the argument for saving the environment cannot be simplified to the public only using metal straws[5], we have to be aware of our involvement with global ethics, what we are capable of achieving, and who is really to blame[6].
I use environmentalism and child labour only as metaphor, for the purposes of this essay. It is true what Maté says about how social media changes the communal dynamic, and our relationship to each other. However, it is overly simplistic to say that the only person to blame is the user of the technology. As counsellors, can we not begin to develop methodologies to help people interact with new developments in the culture (and psychoculture) without it becoming a detriment to mental health, to our communities, and to the nation at large? If the internet, and social media, opens the door to a new, digitised, Μουσεῖον τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας[7], should we not celebrate this achievement?
And yet, I know, when I step away from social media, I feel brighter, clearer, and happier. If I can’t avoid the technology, but I know that going outside to smell the roses benefits me, what paradigm can I put into play to benefit both myself, whilst also not losing out on the wider picture.
Dopamine High, Ethical Low
First, why does social media diminish my jolly demeanour so?
“We’ve all been there. You glance at Instagram (or your Twitter feed, or your LinkedIn feed, or Facebook, or your newspaper app). You look at the first entry and then the next, and then swipe with your finger or thumb to see what comes next and then next, and before you know it 15 minutes has gone by. You just became part of a dopamine seeking-reward loop.”[8]
Applications like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, utilise imagery and proprioceptive motion to recreate that dopamine loop that Dr. Susan Weinschenk[9] speaks of. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, who often had spiritual and enlightening experiences on drugs like psilocybin, DMT, and LSD, remarked to me that the flashing, strobing images from mobile phone applications, combined with the sudden bursts of noise & sound, could recreate within him a low-level experience similar to taking these drugs at a rave. Some companies are beginning to utilise this digital-high to induce meditative states, and benefit mental health[10] (and I myself use isochronic brain entrainement[11] when I meditate for a richer experience), but what does this say to the average user of social media?
“When you bring up the feed on one of your favorite apps the dopamine loop has become engaged. With every photo you scroll through, headline you read, or link you go to you are feeding the loop which just makes you want more. It takes a lot to reach satiation, and in fact you might never be satisfied. Chances are what makes you stop is that someone interrupts you. It turns out the dopamine system doesn’t have satiety built in.”
Although the relationship between psychedelics, addiction, and overdosing is not as easy to relate as, say, our relationship with nicotine & alcohol, any individual who is being forcibly dosed with psychedelic-like experiences could easily have adverse reactions. Before we even reach the medical analyses, we have a duty of care around the notion of consent, and who is responsible for educating the public so that informed consent can be carried through:
““I feel tremendous guilt,” admitted Chamath Palihapitiya, former Vice President of User Growth at Facebook, to an audience of Stanford students. He was responding to a question about his involvement in exploiting consumer behavior. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works,” he explained.”[12]
If you are using social media unaware of how it’s strobing, dopamine-looped muscle memory is affecting you, and you have a predisposition to certain personality disorders, addictive behaviours, or other psychological hardwiring, you could be placing yourself in a position of extreme distress with a technology you have been told ‘everybody uses’. Informed consent is an important aspect of our relationship with social media, long before we discuss what Gabor Maté indicates is a struggle for interpersonal relationships.
Microdosing & Mental Health
Fazida Karim et al, plainly state in the opening line, “[s]ocial media are responsible for aggravating mental health problems”. “A number of studies have been conducted on the impacts of social media, and it has been indicated that the prolonged use of social media platforms such as Facebook may be related to negative signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress”[13] and who of us could argue that this does not correlate to our experience of drug abusers? And I’d argue that he drug abuser has a greater chance of informed consent as to the reaction they will receive from psychedelics than the average person has when engaging with social media.
“The findings of our study are in line and extend the Rosen’s study which reported that general Facebook usage positively predicts narcissism, antisocial, compulsive, paranoid and histrionic personality traits among adult Facebook users. They also reported that histrionic and narcissistic personality traits are predicted by number of friends on Facebook which negatively predicts schizoid personality features.”[14]
Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review (and related studies) uncovers some other interesting elements. There does not seem to initially be a correlation between ‘selfie taking’ and a crash mental health, but there is still a marked increase in depressive behaviours. Treating social media as a form of psychedelic may shine a light on this disparity. It is less to do with the content of social media[15] but rather how we consume it, through the medium of a shining, strobing, screaming box triggering our neurones in a way we haven’t entirely consented to.
“Addictive social media use will look much like that of any other substance use disorder, including mood modification (i.e., engagement in social media leads to a favorable change in emotional states), salience (i.e., behavioral, cognitive, and emotional preoccupation with social media), tolerance (i.e., ever increasing use of social media over time), withdrawal symptoms (i.e., experiencing unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms when social media use is restricted or stopped), conflict (i.e., interpersonal problems ensue because of social media usage), and relapse (i.e., addicted individuals quickly revert back to their excessive social media usage after an abstinence period).”[16]
I would liken the above to the drug overdose; rather than debating that it is the use of social media as a whole that is the issue — for I see no difference in mental health concerns between constantly beaming the news from my mobile into my eyes versus watching The One Show endlessly in the hopes of a new idea, or reading the same newspaper, or listening to the same radio shows — we should regard it as an unnatural behaviour with a natural technology. I do liken The Internet to a new Library of Alexandria. If those scholars could beam the entirety of those texts into their mind immediately, they too would suffer. The issue is not the library, but the consumption methodologies.
In the same vein as Twitter birthed the microblog, so does drug culture birth the microdose.
“This means: you don’t take a regular amount or triple dose, but only about 1/10th of it. According to the common view on psychedelic substances, a microdose has hardly any (noticeable) effect. You don’t experience a classic “psychedelic trip”, not even a little bit. At the same time, people who take microdoses often do perceive subtle effects. It is believed that it works on a sub-perceptual level, so the microdose should not cause classic psychedelic effects, including the visual disturbances.”[17]
Unlike other entheogen use — some of which Maté guides[18] — which come in higher doses, performed singularly (such as with ayahuasca) or on-and-off (such as other psychedelics)[19], microdosing come in such small doses that they react to the system outside of the preconceived notion of ‘the trip’ or hallucination[20]. And it has been noted that microdosing these kinds of drugs can alleviate the effects of depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns:
“[…]in one international survey, 79% of respondents reported improvements in their mental health after microdosing. In other surveys, participants described experiencing better creativity and productivity, in addition to decreased levels of anxiety and depression.”[21]
I cannot help but refer to the likes of R D Laing[22] and Albert Hofmann (the chemist who conjured LSD into the collective consciousness) when I read about these successes. Although, almost certainly, unethical in their time (especially Laing), the idea that we can find benefits to mental health from sources ordinarily regarded as radical, dangerous, countercultural, and other buzz terms of the far-right must dispel some of the dark energy surrounding the works of these anti-psychiatrists. “Forty-four percent of all respondents perceived that their mental health was much better and 35.8% perceived that it was somewhat better because of microdosing”[23], a remarkable up-tick that I am shocked is not part of the general discourse surrounding chemically-impacted mental health. We talk of SSRIs, but not of LSD. This surprises me when I see figures such as this.
What intrigues me for the purposes of this essay however, is how this relates to our experience of social media. If social media creates the dopamine feedback loops that are associate with drug dependency, and that this mechanism is similarly aligned to that of taking large quantities of drugs, then how might we adapt the model of anti-depressive microdosing to that of social media.
On the one hand, it seems quite a basic statement. If we lessen our use of the technology, then this will benefit our mental health. If we balance our time on screens with that of the outside world, we will fight off the anxious and depressive episodes associated with a social framework designed around narcissism, addictive feedback, and ‘slot-machine’ styled engagement. It seems redundant to apply this to microdosing, when in truth all I am saying is that we need to balance our behaviours as we would with exercise, sex, diet, and countless other aspects of the human experience which can become addictive & damaging.
However, the correlation seems too pronounced for me to ignore. And, as we have determined, being able to give up these new technological-social advancements not just for personal reasons, but for ethical ones, is not entirely plausible. Many of us require these technologies and cannot just switch them off to benefit the wider picture, or to perform a kind of moral obligation. It may make us feel good to step away from the phone, but for many people this is just not something that can happen in their chosen or enforced lifestyles. From the businessman who has to keep in contact with offices around the world, to the homeless person who needs technology to apply for jobs & housing, to frame this simply as “step away from the screen” is not just improper, but callous.
How microdosing social media may manifest I could not rightly explain to you here. As I said in the disclaimer, I am no medical professional. I am a counsellor, guide, and practicing witch, all three roles unable to give biologic-chemical praxis to benefit the mind. But looking at the figures on how lysergic acid diethylamide, psychedelic psilocybin, and N,N-dimethyltryptamine can improve, substantially, the creativity & happiness of a client, I cannot help but wonder what would happen if we included dopamine-feedback loops from social media (or some other kind of technology) into the mix.
Addiction & Community
It is well documented that human beings require a certain amount of face-to-face interaction to benefit their mental health (and also to fight off a host of other biologic and psychological ailments), and that social media is restricting how we engage with other people. As I say, having been inside for two years recovering from surgery, if it wasn’t for Twitter & Discord, I would have been unable to maintain any kind of social interaction — I cannot, in good conscience, decry social media as a pure evil denying us social interaction in the real world. However, similarly, if people are addicted to these platforms, the chance of their personalities relying more on dopamine loops rather than interpersonal relationships increases; this worries me.
“Human beings are social creatures. We need the companionship of others to thrive in life, and the strength of our connections has a huge impact on our mental health and happiness.”[24] And yet these applications are designed to keep us focussed on screens, which can illicit behaviours comparable to drug abuse. It feels hopeless to fight such huge corporations, entwined so diabolically with capitalising on our poor mental health, fragile lifestyles, and precarious employment.
I have quoted Gabor Maté throughout this piece as, when I came across him[25] during my tutorials, his idea of how to treat those with addiction with hope, rather than chastisement, reinvigorated my love for therapy, counselling, and this practice — rather than telling the client that they must cease their use of the compound they are addicted to, instead congratulate them, celebrate with them, that they found something to live for. Addictive behaviours, through Maté’s lens, stem from childhood trauma, and adult trauma, and are a mechanism of finding a reason to live when all hope seems to have been lost. To celebrate with your client that they have found a reason to live empowers them, rather than placing them in a spiral of work to cease their destructive behaviours. Positive inspiration to inspire positive change.
“All addictions — alcohol or drugs, sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling or shopping — are attempts to regulate our internal emotional states because we’re not comfortable, and the discomfort originates in childhood. For me, there’s no distinction except in degree between one addiction and another: same brain circuits, same emotional dynamics, same pain and same behaviors of furtiveness, denial and lying.”[26]
Social media is designed to create addictive behaviours. Microdosing LSD may prove, in studies, to act as an anti-depressant, but we cannot be certain how social media — and the strobing effects of their applications — will react under similar conditioning. It is one thing to blame, entirely, the nature of social media on the reason why we are losing interpersonal skills, breaking down communities, and becoming addicted to screens of flashing colour & noise. It is another to consider that, perhaps, with a world literally on fire[27], with capitalism exploiting us, with the knowledge our mobile phones can only exist due to child slavery, that social media offers an escapism from that collective, cultural trauma.
Social media is part of a tapestry of pleasures & pains that effect the human spirit. Rather than chastising those who stay focussed on their screens — in much the same way our grandparents did the television, and their parents the wireless, and their parents the newspaper — we should perhaps wonder why they are so entwined with the technology. Is it simply overdosing on dopamine, withdrawal, and a return to those flashing lights? Or might, if we construct a better world, we would find ourselves wanting to participate in it once more. Celebrate with me that people have found a reason to live. It may be memes, but it’s better than nothing.
Nathan T. Dean is a writer, artist, trainee counsellor, practicing chaos witch, and founder of Ollamh Counselling.
All of these essays are part of an evolving documentation. Ideas the author may have now may shift in the future. This is the lot of the therapist, who must continuously explore their empathy in radical ways as the environment around them shifts. If you find anything in these documents you find offensive, please contact the author at ollamhcounselling@gmail.com. Without discussion, correction, and open discourse, we cannot benefit our clients as effectively as we might.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-05qHLyG344
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-unethical-untrustworthy-and-now-downright-harmful/
[3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/young-and-dying-the-scandal-of-artisanal-mining/article4487572/
[4] If you haven’t done already. I had purchased this before awareness of BDS: https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp
[5] https://twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/1424706242971373568
[6] https://twitter.com/chilledasad100/status/1424825071223414787
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaeum
[8] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201802/the-dopamine-seeking-reward-loop
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcg5Mo4GRMY
[10] https://lumenategrowth.com/the-lumenate-app/
[11] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/isochronicBrainwaveGenerator.php
[12] https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/
[13] Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review by Fazida Karim , Azeezat Oyewande , Lamis F. Abdalla , Reem Chaudhry Ehsanullah, & Safeera Khan: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364393/pdf/cureus-0012-00000008627.pdf
[14] Social media use and personality disorders by Ömer Faruk Akça, Ayhan Bilgiç, Hülya Karagöz, Yahya Çikili, Fatih Koçak, & Carla Sharp: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335975046_Social_media_use_and_personality_disorders?enrichId=rgreq-ef8eaf5843b145053965a8c724d24b84-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzMzNTk3NTA0NjtBUzo4ODE2NjQ1NzgyOTc4NTdAMTU4NzIxNjYyNDU5Nw%3D%3D&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationCoverPdf
[15] Although, seeing the world on fire day in, day out, must have some kind of effect on mental health, right?
[16] https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/social-media-addiction/
[17] https://microdosinginstitute.com/microdosing-101/what-is-microdosing/
[18] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_-OWSfzwY
[19] I do not, however, condone continued psychedelic use. As Gabor Maté indicates, these are to help open doors of perception into your inner world. They are not toys, they are tools.
[20] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOTaXhbqPQ
[21] https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/can-microdosing-psychedelics-improve-your-mental-health/
[22] https://www.topic.com/breakdown-palace
[23] https://www.psypost.org/2020/10/international-study-finds-79-of-individuals-who-microdose-with-psychedelics-report-improvements-in-their-mental-health-58391
[24] https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/social-media-and-mental-health.htm#
[25] https://youtu.be/Bz-VObNRmu0
[26] https://californiahealthline.org/news/addiction-rooted-in-childhood-trauma-says-prominent-specialist/
[27] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greece-fires-athens-evacuations/