WHAT if I told you that using social media is just as harmful as consuming alcohol, smoking a cigarette, or gambling? In a sense, it is. The thread connecting these actions is dopamine.

Dopamine is an enormously complex neurotransmitter, with countless functions that are responsible for all the work our brain does. It affects our movement, our mood, our cognitive abilities; it even affects our personality. It also motivates us to want, desire, and seek out experiences that bring us satisfaction.

Dopamine is critical in keeping us motivated to survive, learn, and achieve our goals. It plays a role in ensuring we hit every milestone in that major project we’re working on because we know the reward at the end of the day will render our efforts worthwhile. And we know that this reward, whether a promotion, a bonus, or a hug from your significant other, is going to bring us pleasure.

This is, however, where the clouds can darken over dopamine. If it is responsible for motivating behaviour that brings us satisfaction, we risk falling into a dopamine-reward loop. What if the rewards that please us are the carefree state of drunkenness, the satisfaction of a cigarette, or the sound of coins trickling out of a slot machine?

Or what if we derive pleasure from obtaining validation from peers on social media, by having our tweets retweeted and our selfies liked?

When we know we enjoy certain things, we seek them out more. When our status update gets liked, we feel good. Two likes, three, four. It feels even better. Fifty likes? Wow, it feels great. Replace ‘likes on social media’ with sips of beer, drags of a cigarette, or pulls of the slot machine; the analogy stands firm. This is an addiction.

Just as with alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling, social media delivers instant gratification. Just as with these vices, social media addiction is a market failure with serious, un-internalised repercussions. This indicates a need for some level of regulation.

Age-based prohibitions exist on consuming alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and gambling. Yet, social media is a regulatory vacuum.

A 2016 survey conducted by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) found that 83.2% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 use the Internet. 93% of them access the Internet from smartphones, with social media use and text messaging the most common online activities for this cohort.

At the same time, only 17.2% of parents utilise parental control software on their children’s devices. This figure must increase; without restrictions on social media use, we are raising a generation that obtains unlimited satisfaction from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, and is, over time, getting used to the experience of instant gratification.

This issue will have long-term, far-reaching consequences for our youth. The cold, hard reality of life is not instant gratification and getting used to it takes away the ability to persevere through the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to survive the toughest moments in life.

For an idea as to what the repercussions of all this look like, consider the following:

• tenure rates are lowest for employees in the youngest cohorts;
• rates of depression are highest for teenagers and young adults;
• suicide is the second-highest cause of death for those between 10 and 34;
• divorce rates peak between the ages of 25 and 29 for women, and between the ages of 25 and 34 for men; and,
• unemployment rates are highest amongst youth, not just in Malaysia but across the world.

This is representative of a generation used to instant gratification, which, thanks to the unregulated influence of social media, will only become more substantial a burden with time.

While it may be antidemocratic for governments to intervene directly in the social lives of our youth, parents themselves face no such constraints. Knowing the dangers of social media overuse, parents should make a concerted effort to curb their children’s screen-time. The regulation of social media must start at home.

The MCMC should assist parents by pressing social media companies and smartphone producers to increase the availability and flexibility of parental control options on devices and apps.

Schools, too, can and should play a role in educating teenagers about the dangers of the overuse and misuse of social media. Smartphones should be off-limits during school hours; France, for instance, will be imposing a ban on mobile phones in schools from September. The Education Ministry should follow France’s lead, and look into teaching healthy social media habits at schools.

Unregulated, the ill effects of social media use will hamper and hinder the livelihoods of our youth and have detrimental economic impacts on the future of Malaysia. – June 12, 2018.

* Darshan Joshi is an Analyst at Penang Institute in Kuala Lumpur. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of New South Wales, and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. His true passions lie in the analyses of global energy- and environmental-related issues. He views climate change as the most significant issue to face contemporary society.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.