It's Okay To Be Smart

Why We All Have "Internet Addiction Genes" . . . And Why That Doesn't Mean Much

Robert Wright has written a masterful piece over at The Atlantic on why discovering genes that are involved with chemical addiction and also internet addiction are completely unsurprising. We’ve all got them, and the fault does not lie in the machinery itself.

We’ve heard claim after claim recently trying to link frequent and habitual internet use to chemical dependence. In a sense, declaring that the internet is like some sort of drug, we can become addicted to it just like we do cocaine, it can cause autism and dementia, and it is ruining our personal lives.

I do not agree with any of the above statements, to say the least. I do believe that some people display bad behaviors associated with internet use, that can become highly compulsive and detrimental to their lives. But chemical dependencies are very specific biochemical and neurobiological short circuits, involving recptor X, molecule Y, and brain circuits that can look like twisted balls of yarn. Simple behaviors are not chemical dependencies.

This week, a German group reported that they had erased all doubt whether internet addiction is real, because they witnessed the following correlation: Many people who report internet addiction also hold a specific form of a gene involved in nicotine addiction. Basically, if a gene involved in nicotine addiction is also found in these people, it probably has something to do with internet addiction too, right?

Wrong. The genes themselves (and their proteins) are simply the machinery of our brain’s pleasure circuits: “I like this, this is a good thing, I will tell the body it is good by releasing a pleasure chemical so that the body will get me more of this.”

We evolved to form habits. Finding food, sex, pleasurable company and interesting ways to pass our time. Nicotine addiction is one of those habits gone out of control. Perhaps so is some people’s internet use. But the fact is we all hold the genes that make this possible. Everyone has the biochemical potential to become addicted to nicotine. The pleasure machinery is there, just waiting to be misused.

So the identification of a gene in people with bad internet habits that’s also involved in nicotine addiction is simply not surprising. We all have these genes. As Robert Wright notes:

“… forms of internet dependence — porn, Facebook, TMZ, Twitter, YouTube — are just a few of the possible ingredients of any one case of internet “addiction.” And each of these ingredients itself involves God-knows-which neurotransmitters and neuronal receptors and, by extension, God-knows-how-many genes. And all of us have lots and lots of these genes—genes that make us susceptible to internet addiction. Because what the internet does is take lots of things that natural selection designed us to find gratifying and make them much easier to get.

Sure, some of these genes may vary from person to person in ways that make some people particularly susceptible to internet addiction (though environmental influences — e.g. learning self-discipline — presumably play a very big role). In fact, it will probably turn out that lots of genes vary in this way — genes that influence impulsiveness or self-discipline generally, or genes that influence the strength of particular drives, like lust or the urge to gossip. In fact, there will turn out to be so many genes which are so modestly correlated with internet addiction that if journalists write stories every time such a gene is found, or is thought to have been found, they will find that they’re not shedding much actual light on the situation.”