Dr. Alok Kanojia

It used to be 24.

But one of the really scary things is that, you know, when you feel lonely, like we think that that's bad, right?

Like we feel like it feels bad to feel lonely.

But that's our brain telling us, our heart telling us, our soul telling us like, hey, this is a signal to connect.

Why do we feel hungry?

Why do we feel thirsty?

It's our organism's way of telling us, hey, you need something.

So the really scary thing that I see is that as people engage with these online relationships,

If you fill up your stomach with gas station food, you'll still develop a nutrient deficiency.

And the reason you'll develop that nutrient deficiency is because you no longer feel hungry.

So your desire to eat an apple won't be there.

So people are actually like shutting down that signal from within themselves, that motivation to form real connections is now being satisfied by these really shallow online connections.

Absolutely.

And that's what's so scary is that we're shutting down our motivational circuitry that causes us to fix our problems.

When I'm working with someone who's got an addiction, they're maybe drowning out.

They're going through a divorce.

They're on probation at work, whatever.

So they have all these problems in their life.

and they feel bad about them.

And once you start drinking, once you start hitting the bottle, you're no longer in all those, like all that numbness sets in, you're not actually fixing your relationship.