By KAREN CASANOVAS
For Senior Voice
Q: I spend hours playing word games and puzzles on my phone. Could I be addicted?
A: To determine if your online habits are an addiction, ask yourself:
1. Interference: Do I game during conversations, meals, or while working?
2. Emotional dependency: Do I feel irritable, restless, or anxious when away from my phone and cannot finish my puzzles?
3. Tolerance: Do I extend play to feel accomplishment or to chase a high score?
4. Failed control: Have I tried to delete the apps or set time limits, but found myself reinstalling them?
5. Deception: Do I hide how much time I spend puzzling or lying to friends and family about it
What excessive use does to your brain
Coined by neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer, “digital dementia” refers to the cognitive decline, brain fog and weakened information processing caused by an over-reliance on digital devices.
How you are being influenced
Every search made and app used—including videos watched, links clicked, likes, and time spent on media—the data is tracked and measured to build your profile. This is called surveillance capitalism. Technology companies want to know: How much of your time can we get you to give to us? Through ads and programming, apps influence what you think, what actions you take, and who you become. These changes happen gradually over time. Screen time is currency: the more you spend, the more it shapes your choices.
Tech companies know the power of persuasion. They have three goals:
1. Engagement (drive up usage to keep you scrolling)
2. Growth (encouraging you to return and share with friends what you're enjoying)
3. Advertising (monetizing your viewing)
Each of these goals is driven by algorithms that curate your feed to steadily increase those numbers.
Why behavior changes
Predictive behavior—our brain's ability to learn patterns and anticipate rewards—leads to addiction when this natural survival mechanism gets hijacked. The brain's reward system stops just enjoying the reward and begins heavily predicting it. This shifts our actions from conscious choices into automatic, compulsive habits.
This transformation occurs in three specific phases:
1. Reward expectancy: The brain forms a strong, positive association between a specific stimulus (like an alert on your phone) and a pleasurable outcome. The brain learns exactly what cues predict the feel-good result.
2. Dopamine shifts: Dopamine was traditionally thought of as the chemical of pleasure, but in modern neuroscience, it is actually the chemical of anticipation and motivation. Once the brain learns a predictive pattern, dopamine releases when you encounter the cue before you even engage in the behavior. This causes an intense, subconscious urge or craving to pursue the reward.
3. The habit loop: When the brain successfully predicts a reward over and over, the action gets delegated to the brain's automatic habit center. This bypasses the area responsible for self-control and evaluating long-term consequences. The behavior becomes highly ingrained, and you begin acting on auto-pilot.
When algorithms, substances, or rapid-reward environments (like gambling) feed into this system, they condition the brain to crave the prediction itself. Over time, this leads to tolerance, where the brain requires more of the stimulus to get the same level of reward, and a loss of voluntary control over the behavior.
Meta and Google face trillion-dollar lawsuits for deliberately engineering addictive apps that exploit their users. For more information view the documentary “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix or inquire about a digital literacy course in your area. Ask a trusted source for guidance in protecting your data, turn off “Allow Tracking” in your apps, and understand that your digital footprint is not private.
Karen Casanovas, PCC, CPCC, CLIPP, is a certified resilience strategist, author, and keynote speaker. Her work explores the intersection of personal narrative, human connection, and formidability. In her latest book, “Cracking the Rich Code” (Vol. 19), she unpacks the core mechanics of overcoming adversity through motivation, agility, and perseverance. For inquiries, contact her at info@karencasanovas.com.
