Frequently Wrong, Rarely in Doubt

(A.K.A. My Brain is Broken and Now I Know Why)

I used to think that my inability to stop scrolling on my phone was a personal failing, a character flaw, something I could fix with enough willpower and a really good self-help audiobook. Turns out, it’s not me. It’s my brain. And not just my brain, but our entire collective brains, which have been corrupted by the sheer, unadulterated convenience of modern life. This is the central thesis of Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, a book that promises to explain why we’re all so miserable and restless, and, for the most part, delivers.

Lembke’s main argument is based on a concept called the pleasure-pain balance, which is surprisingly easy to get your head around, probably because you don’t even have to get out of bed to think about it. Basically, our brains are lazy, manipulative little things that hate discomfort and love a good party. When we do something pleasurable, like inhaling an entire family-sized bag of chips while hate-watching a reality show, our brain releases dopamine. Then, to keep things balanced, it pushes us slightly into the pain column. Over time, because we’re all bottomless pits of need, we keep doing more and more stuff to get that dopamine hit, and our brain just gets better at pushing us into pain. The end result? We’re all left feeling like a wet cat, perpetually craving something we’ll never truly get. It’s a real vibe.

Now, here’s the thing. The book promises to give you strategies for fixing your deeply broken brain, and it kind of… doesn’t. It’s like a date who tells you they have a detailed plan for the night, and then you just end up standing awkwardly outside a closed pizza place. However, and this is a big however, understanding is half the battle, and the understanding is, for lack of a better word, chef’s kiss. The case studies she presents make the science feel so real. You can’t read about a guy who got addicted to video games and not look at your own compulsive TikTok habit with a new kind of self-loathing. So, while the book doesn’t give you a roadmap out of hell, it gives you a very detailed, well-lit map of hell. And honestly, that’s better than nothing. Overall, it’s a good book. You should read it. Unless you’d rather just scroll TikTok.