Dr. Robert Lustig

And that's the dopamine.

So that's one of the problems.

Well, once upon a time, we had this thing called the public square.

And you could go to the public square and you could say whatever you wanted.

Because it was a public square.

But everybody knew who said it.

And you would have to suffer the consequences of what you said.

And so your prefrontal cortex reigned you in.

You reasoned yourself out of making trouble because your brain worked right.

Your prefrontal cortex basically kept your dopamine in check and it also kept your cortisol in check.

We've lost that capability.

And social media is one of the reasons we have lost it.

Not the only reason, but it's the main one.

And it's why depression has gone up since 2007.

OCD has gone up since 2007, since the introduction of the iPhone.

And you can plot it.

You can see the depression.

You can see the suicides going up at the same time with the advent of the iPhone.

So there's no question that social media is basically giving your brain the notion that it can do whatever the hell it wants.

And one of the reasons is, you know, anonymity, you know, you can be online with a, with a moniker instead of yourself and no one knows who it is.