Is Your Phone Keeping You From Falling In Love?

Whether you’re single and trying to find Mr. Right or you’re a married woman who’s been settled down for a decade, your smartphone could be keeping you from falling and staying in love. 

It’s no secret that phones have their fair share of harmful impacts, but do they really have the power to keep us from falling in love or maintaining a happy and healthy relationship? According to Dr. Alonk Kanojia, renowned psychiatrist who specializes in video game addiction, constant smartphone usage can damage your brain in ways that you likely don’t even realize. In his interview with Steven Bartlett, founder of Diary of a CEO, Dr. Kanojia deep dives into the science behind falling in love, the harmful impacts of constant phone usage, and ways to combat dopamine depletion.

The Science Behind Falling in Love

While falling in love is commonly thought to be one of the most abstract, unexplainable feelings we can experience, a great deal of the intricacies of falling in love can be described by science. In fact, falling in love is one of the most heavily studied fields in neuroscience research and has been examined for decades through behavioral studies, brain imaging technology, and hormone measuring devices. 

In his interview, Dr. Kanojia explains that falling in love today feels harder because we have become dopamine resistant as a society. In order to understand what that means and why that’s such a problem when it comes to falling in love, Dr. K offers a high-level overview of what occurs in the brain when two people fall in love.

In order to fall in love an initial attraction must first be present—i.e., we have to find the other person physically attractive and enjoy being around them. We have to like their scent, their laugh, their appearance, etc. And that initial level of attraction is very sensory-based, meaning that the thalamus, the part of the brain responsible for intaking sensory information, is quite actively interpreting these new stimuli as positive.

Because our brains are hard-wired to seek out pleasure, that initial sensory intake process engages our reward system which is largely fueled by the release of a chemical transmitter called dopamine, responsible for motivation and mood. Dr. K explains that a “dopaminergic connection,” the mutual experience of dopamine release between two people, is necessary in the very early stages of falling in love. Of course there are much greater complexities to falling in love aside from a dopamine release, especially when it comes to forming bonds, building trust, etc. but the basic building blocks come down to dopamine.

How Smartphones Are At Fault

Now that we’ve established why dopamine is critical to the early stages of falling in love, Dr. K gets to the crux of his lesson. He explains that studies are showing fewer new couples engaging in that dopaminergic connection because we’re developing an unrealistically high tolerance for dopamine through our pleasure-chasing society and the constant need to be entertained. Smartphones, social media, and video games are largely at fault for the development of our high dopamine tolerance because the entire basis of these technologies is to cater to our desire to feel enjoyment. Studies show that interacting with smartphones elicits a great deal of dopamine, making them highly addictive. And with their overwhelming presence in our daily lives, the ability to experience that pleasure is at our fingertips 24/7, meaning that dopamine-highs are more frequent and our reward system is constantly engaged.

“We turn to it [the smartphone] for quick hits of dopamine all day, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet.” – Anna Lembke, MD

For example, when you post on Instagram and your phone is flooded with notifications of other users double-tapping your post, your brain experiences a dopamine high. This same process happens when you win a level of your favorite video game, watch a TikTok video from an influencer you like, and so on. In her book Dopamine Nation, addiction expert Anna Lembke, MD explains that behavioral addiction rates have climbed since the turn of the millennium, which can almost wholly be attributed to the rise in technology. Nearly everything about our smartphones fuels that pleasure-seeking human need, and the problem with living in a state of constant enjoyment is that our threshold for experiencing pleasure heightens.

The Dangers of Depleted Dopamine

We’ve all heard the saying, “Too much of a good thing can be bad” and few of us want to believe it, but psychologists like Dr. K and Dr. Lembke know this to be true, especially when it comes to dopamine tolerance. Dopamine is like a drug to our brains—the more we engage with it and activate that reward system in the limbic brain, the higher our tolerances become. So eventually, we require a larger amount of dopamine to experience the same “high” we used to experience with just a small amount. Starting to sound like an addiction problem, right?

In other words, the more you activate your dopaminergic system, the more tolerance you will develop toward it. That’s why the first 30 minutes of Instagram scrolling is fun but by hour three, it’s mentally exhausting. Dopamine offers pleasure, but only in a brief and unsustainable manner. According to Dr. K, chasing dopamine is a deceiving, even dangerous, game because our threshold for it will only continue to grow.

And ironically enough, Dr. Lembke’s research shows that despite the increased access to constant entertainment at our fingertips, we are not having more fun or experiencing more happiness. Instead, data points to higher depression and anxiety rates. In her book, Lembke debunks a commonly held misconception about dopamine: “Rather than giving us pleasure itself, as is commonly thought, dopamine motivates us to do things we think will bring pleasure.” So not only is chasing a dopamine high a losing battle because our tolerance will continually increase, it also will not even leave us feeling satisfied and happier.

Smartphones & Divisive Attention

Depleted dopamine and smartphone addiction does not only affect new couples, it turns out that established relationships can fall victim to the myriad of problems that come along with phone overuse too. Have you ever looked around at a restaurant and noticed how many couples nowadays spend mealtimes almost completely engulfed in their phones? It doesn’t take a scientific study to tell us that couples like these are distracted, more disconnected from one another, and less present. When one partner sits on their phone at the dinner table, the other partner will likely feel isolated, neglected, and uncared for, ultimately causing relationship intimacy barriers.

According to researchers, continual distractions like phone usage during quality time can eventually create resentment and emotional distance in a relationship. But a shocking 2011 study showed that even the mere presence of an unused cell phone on the dinner table during a date lowered relationship quality. And the negative effect was even greater when one partner was sharing a personal or emotional story. This shows us that even when they’re not being used, cell phones divide our attention and act as an obstruction to emotional closeness and relationship trust. 

But beyond using or having a phone nearby when trying to spend quality time with your partner, if one or both people in the relationship suffer from smartphone addiction, their dopamine stores are depleted. Based on Dr. K and Dr. Lembke’s research, this leaves us with less energy and decreased emotional availability for engaging with our partner. So, even if you actively avoid being distracted by your phone while in the presence of your partner, your depleted dopamine levels can still negatively impact your relationship. So if you find that your relationship is plagued by emotional barriers and distractions, try a few of the tips below to reset your attention and strengthen your connection. 

Beating A Smartphone Addiction & Reclaiming Your Brain

Whether you have a diagnosed addiction to your phone or you’re just actively trying to decrease your screen time, try the following tips from Drs Kanojia and Lembke.

• Set Screen Time Limits: Smartphones are addictive in nature, so it’s easy to spend hours “doom scrolling” or swiping through an app. Set time limits on your apps to hold yourself accountable for daily usage amounts. A more extreme approach is to lock your phone in a box and not use it for a full day or more. However, if that sounds too daunting, then try setting boundaries like screen time limits.

• Swap The Phone Out For A Brain Healthy Activity: Many of us reach for our phones out of habit or second nature rather than true desire to use it. If you’re preparing for a date and know that your brain is going to be engaged in a dopaminergic manner, help yourself out by reducing your dopamine activation. Dr. Kanojia recommends giving your dopamine a chance to recharge by going on a walk an hour before your date so your brain capacity to engage is higher. Other dopamine healthy activities include listening to music, getting sun exposure, or practicing a hobby.

• Practice The Art of Doing Nothing: The more we let our brains revel in the bounty of doing nothing and simply sitting with our thoughts, the less we’ll need to seek technological stimulation. Dr. Lembke adds that while doing nothing may seem less fun than constant phone entertainment and it will involve tolerating discomfort rather than “seeking refuge in shiny things,” she promises that it’s an effort well worth it for balancing your brain’s dopamine levels.

"People get a ton of dopamine from technology, that's why it's so addictive. The bigger problem is that once we get used to high amounts of dopamine from technology, other dopaminergic activities (like reading or talking) become less enjoyable. Using our dopamine through technology means there's less available for other activities, including falling in love." – Dr. Alonk Kanojia

Today, smartphones are thought to be our avenue to finding love and making connections. And while it should seemingly be easier than ever to find your soulmate with the evolution of dating apps and social media, sadly the opposite is true and young generations of singles are struggling.

Smartphone overuse is depleting our dopamine stores leaving us more emotionally unavailable, distracted, and mentally exhausted than ever before. If you’re someone who struggles with constantly checking your notifications or feeling like your smartphone is a fifth limb, listen to one of Dr. Alonk Kanojia’s podcasts or check out Dr. Anna Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation.