The curious title of Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke's book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, pays tribute to the crucial and often destructive role that dopamine plays in modern society.
斯坦福大学精神病学家安娜·伦布克（Anna Lembke）的著作《多巴胺国度：在放纵时代寻找平衡》（Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence）的奇特书名，旨在向多巴胺在现代社会中扮演的关键且常常具有破坏性的角色致敬。
Dopamine, the main chemical involved in addiction, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in a rewarding experience such as finding food, clothing, shelter or a sexual mate. Nature designed our brains to feel pleasure when these experiences happen because they increase our odds of survival and of procreation.
多巴胺是成瘾机制中涉及的主要化学物质，当我们经历诸如找到食物、衣物、住所或性伴侣等奖励性体验时，大脑中的某些神经束就会分泌这种物质。大自然设计我们的大脑在这些体验发生时产生快感，因为它们能提高我们的生存和繁衍几率。
But the days when our species dwelled in caves and struggled for survival are long gone. Dopamine Nation explains how living in a modern society, affluent beyond comparison by evolutionary standards, has rendered us all vulnerable to dopamine-mediated addiction. Today, the addictive substance of choice, whether we realize it or not, is often the internet and social media channels, according to Lembke, MD.
但人类穴居求生、挣扎求存的时代早已远去。《多巴胺国度》一书阐释了在进化标准下空前富裕的现代社会，如何让我们所有人都容易受到多巴胺介导的成瘾行为影响。医学博士莱姆克指出，如今无论我们是否意识到，网络和社交媒体渠道往往已成为人们首选的成瘾物质。
"If you're not addicted yet, it's coming soon to a website near you," Lembke joked when I talked to her about the message of Dopamine Nation, which was published in August. This Q&A is abridged from that exchange.
"如果你尚未成瘾，它很快就会出现在你附近的网站上，"当我与莱姆克讨论 2021 年 8 月出版的《多巴胺国度》一书主旨时，她这样打趣道。本次问答内容节选自那次对话。
Why did you decide to write this book?
您为何决定撰写这本书？
I wanted to tell readers what I'd learned from patients and from neuroscience about how to tackle compulsive overconsumption. Feel-good substances and behaviors increase dopamine release in the brain's reward pathways.
我想告诉读者我从患者和神经科学中学到的关于如何应对强迫性过度消费的知识。令人愉悦的物质和行为会增加大脑奖赏通路中多巴胺的释放。
The brain responds to this increase by decreasing dopamine transmission — not just back down to its natural baseline rate, but below that baseline. Repeated exposure to the same or similar stimuli ultimately creates a chronic dopamine-deficit state, wherein we're less able to experience pleasure.
大脑通过减少多巴胺传递来应对这种增加——不仅是回到其自然的基线水平，而是低于该基线。反复接触相同或相似的刺激最终会产生一种慢性多巴胺缺乏状态，在这种状态下，我们体验快乐的能力会降低。
What are the risk factors for addiction?
成瘾的风险因素有哪些？
Easy access and speedy reward are two of them. Just as the hypodermic needle is the delivery mechanism for drugs like heroin, the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine for a wired generation.
易于获取和快速回报是其中两个。正如皮下注射器是海洛因等药物的输送机制一样，智能手机是现代的皮下注射器，为互联一代输送数字多巴胺。
The hypodermic needle delivers a drug right into our vascular system, which in turn delivers it right to the brain, making the drug more potent. The same is true for the smartphone; with its bright colors, flashing lights and engaging alerts, it delivers images to our visual cortex that are tough to resist. And the quantity is endless. TikTok never runs out.
皮下注射器将药物直接送入我们的血管系统，继而直达大脑，使药效更为强烈。智能手机同样如此——凭借鲜艳的色彩、闪烁的灯光和引人入胜的提示，它将令人难以抗拒的画面直接输送到我们的视觉皮层。而且这种刺激永不枯竭，抖音的内容永远刷不完。
What makes social media particularly addictive?
社交媒体为何具有如此强烈的成瘾性？
We're wired to connect. It's kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger. Moving in tribes safeguards against predators, optimizes scarce resources and facilitates pair bonding. Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, which incentivizes us to do it again.
我们天生渴望联结。在资源匮乏、危机四伏的世界里，这种本能让我们存活了数百万年。群居生活能抵御掠食者、优化稀缺资源配置并促进伴侣结合。每当建立人际联系时，大脑就会释放多巴胺，这种机制不断驱使我们重复社交行为。
But social connection has become druggified by social-media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brains' reward pathway all at once, just like heroin, or meth, or alcohol. They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.
但社交媒体应用使社交联系变得像毒品一样令人上瘾，让我们容易陷入强迫性的过度使用。这些应用能一次性向大脑的奖励通路释放大量多巴胺，效果堪比海洛因、冰毒或酒精。它们通过放大那些最初吸引人类相互靠近的愉悦感来达到这种效果。
Then there's novelty. Dopamine is triggered by our brain's search-and-explore functions, telling us, "Hey, pay attention to this, something new has come along." Add to that the artificial intelligence algorithms that learn what we've liked before and suggest new things that are similar but not exactly the same, and we're off and running.
其次是新鲜感。多巴胺会因大脑的"搜寻-探索"功能而触发，向我们发出信号："嘿，注意这个，有新东西出现了。"再加上人工智能算法会学习我们过去的喜好，推荐相似但又不尽相同的新内容，我们就此陷入循环。
Further, our brains aren't equipped to process the millions of comparisons the virtual world demands. We can become overwhelmed by our inability to measure up to these "perfect" people who exist only in the Matrix. We give up trying and sink into depression, or what neuroscientists called "learned helplessness."
此外，我们的大脑并不具备处理虚拟世界所要求的数百万次比较的能力。面对那些只存在于"母体"中的"完美"人物时，我们会因无法企及而感到不堪重负。我们放弃努力，陷入抑郁，也就是神经科学家所称的"习得性无助"。
Upon signing off, the brain is plunged into a dopamine-deficit state as it attempts to adapt to the unnaturally high levels of dopamine social media just released. Which is why social media often feels good while we're doing it but horrible as soon as we stop.
登出社交媒体时，大脑会陷入多巴胺匮乏状态，因为它正试图适应社交媒体刚刚释放的超常高水平多巴胺。这就是为什么使用社交媒体时感觉良好，但一旦停止就会感到难受。
Is there an antidote to our addiction to social media?
社交媒体成瘾有解药吗？
Yes, a timeout — at least for a day. But a whole month is more typically the minimum amount of time we need away from our drug of choice, whether it's heroin or Instagram, to reset our dopamine reward pathways. A monthlong dopamine fast will decrease the anxiety and depression that social media can induce, and enhance our ability to enjoy other, more modest rewards again.
有的，那就是暂停使用——至少一天。但通常来说，无论是海洛因还是 Instagram，我们需要远离这些"成瘾物"至少整整一个月，才能重置大脑的多巴胺奖励回路。为期一个月的"多巴胺戒断"可以减轻社交媒体引发的焦虑和抑郁，并恢复我们享受其他更简单快乐的能力。
If and when we return to social media, we can consolidate our use to certain times of the day, avoid certain apps that suck us into the vortex and prioritize apps that connect us with real people in our real lives.
当我们重返社交媒体时，可以将使用时间集中在一天中的特定时段，避开那些将我们卷入漩涡的应用程序，优先选择那些能让我们与现实生活中的真人建立联系的平台。
Photo by dole777 多乐 777 拍摄的照片
