Nearly everything you’ve heard about dopamine is wrong. No, it’s not the molecule of happiness. And no, it doesn’t give us pleasure–it gives us motivation. For the first time in history, we are inundated with what are known as ‘dopamine surges’ inside our brains. These surges pull us to technology like magnets, every day, many times a day. Over the past decade, neuroscientists have finally begun to figure out how these surges alter our choices, our habits, and even our moods. We’ve learned how dopamine can drive adults and kids to engage in activities that we don’t actually enjoy–activities that can make us feel sad, lonely, anxious, and depressed. When Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, the New York Times bestselling author of Hunt, Gather, Parent, decided to address her family’s screen time and dependence on processed foods, she found that scientific study after scientific study refuted nearly all the claims she’d read in the media about dopamine and the supposed reasons we’re so inclined to pick up our phones or raid the pantry. She took this new neuroscience and psychology and merged it with practical experience, shifting the power dynamic back to families: instead of devices and foods controlling us, we control them, and both screens and the pantry become tools rather than burdens. Dopamine Kids is a five-step operating manual for habit remodeling that is tailored for parents and their children.
