When we hear the word, “dependency,” we may think of drug and alcohol addiction, which are the forms of dependency most often depicted in popular culture. Dependency is defined as being “abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming.” This definition covers an extensive territory.
Some researchers have followed dependency and addiction into the realm of the complex chemical reactions which take place inside the brain and the endocrine system. They have identified neuropeptides, chemicals inside the brain, which are produced in response to certain drugs. In the addictive response, brain cells flooded by the same neuropeptides develop specific receptors for those molecules. When these receptors do not receive the chemicals for which they were designed, withdrawal symptoms occur.
Those of us who are not addicted to drugs (including alcohol and nicotine) might easily set aside this cautionary tale from the frontiers of the human brain, but in doing so we would lose a key component in understanding our own behavior and the behavior of our children. Drugs are not the only things that produce an addictive response inside the brain. Emotions also produce neuropeptides which build receptors on brain cells.
We can all in a moment’s time think of people we know who are habitually angry or negative, people who are “addicted to drama” or who always seem capable of creating a stressful situation where none existed before. We might look no further than the nearest mirror to find an example of someone who has modified their brain chemistry for dependency.
Several times in this forum we have discussed the possibility that our way of life can produce addiction to constant external stimulation. Personally, I have looked with pity upon increasing numbers of young people (and adults) who feel that they must remain constantly “connected” to our ever growing matrix of communication. I have spent evenings with people who sent text messages during our conversation and who continued to do so during dinner and even while watching a movie at a theater. I have watched young people in a department store who exited their vehicle talking and texting and continued to talk and text during their entire visit, but not to each other. I thought myself immune to this type of addiction until a few nights ago when, in a rare instance for Windstream, my phone and Internet connections both went down for several hours.
Surrounded by books, encircled by projects in need of completion, with a pile of dirty laundry to wash (some of which was parked on top of exercise equipment in need of attention), tax forms in need of filling out, not to mention an astounding wilderness of stars and a dusty telescope, I chose instead to fret over being “cut off” from the “world.” I didn’t realize my own addictive response before an hour and a half of unplugging phone lines, rebooting modems and routers and a four mile drive to the nearest hilltop capable of gaining the first bar of reception on my cell phone.
As in all addictions, there is hope for those of us dependent on technology and information. By practicing new behaviors we can build new receptors in our brains which support healthier choices. We can even choose to “not do,” discovering once again the practice of meditation and prayer and just “being” which is becoming so alien to our culture. With these words I am shutting down my computer for the day and pulling on my boots for a hike.
