How To Stop School ‘Mindfulness’ Apps From Harvesting Your Child’s Health Data
Schools' mindfulness meditation programs come with a hidden cost — the collection of children’s data, which could potentially be misused.Schools' mindfulness meditation programs come with a hidden cost — the collection of children’s data, which could potentially be misused.Like most gay men, I wasn't 'born this way' — and I refuse to lie about it
“Why are you gay?” intoned Tucker Carlson in an African accent. Then the internet exploded. The voices of countless homosexuals and their supportive family members rose in unison to a pitch so shrill it could crack silicon data chips.
They trotted out all the predictable labels. Homophobe. Bigot. Christian nationalist. Carlson was promptly denounced across social media as a homophobe, a bigot, and a purveyor of hateful Christian nationalism — simply for asking the question we are not allowed to ask.
'I’m not crying because you’re gay,' she said. 'I’m crying because I know that life is going to be harder for you.'
It happened on Carlson’s December 4 podcast, which featured an extensive conversation with “Dangerous Faggot” Milo Yiannopoulos. For those who don’t know, Yiannopolous is a right-wing cultural commentator and provocateur with a pronounced histrionic gay affect. Today, he says he has abandoned homosexuality.
Trauma response
Before I go farther, it’s necessary to clear some underbrush. I am interested in the content of what Yiannopolous said, not in what anyone thinks of him as a person. Whether one thinks he’s honest, dishonest, annoying, or charming is irrelevant. What he says is what I’m interested in.
So what did he say?
"In almost every case, and certainly in every male case, [homosexuality] is a trauma response. It is not a sexuality."
Milo Yiannopolous speaks for me. I endorse what he said and believe it to be true. I believe I became a homosexual because I grew up under a mother with narcissistic personality disorder, a father who left before I could ever meet him, and an attempted murderer and pedophile for a stepfather.
Let me clear away some more underbrush, though it will probably be fruitless.
1. Yes, I believe the large majority of male homosexuals are homosexuals because of childhood circumstances and trauma.
2. Yes, I believe that most of those who claim that they had no childhood trauma are not being candid — including, in some cases, not being candid with themselves. Personal and professional experience leads me to this conclusion.
3. No, I’m not claiming that every single male homosexual had abusive parents. Yes, I recognize that some male homosexuals come from stable, loving families. I have male homosexual friends who fit this description.
What we used to know
We have lived for so long with the culturally enforced mandate to believe in “born this way” that we have to remind society of what it used to know just yesterday. Those of you in middle age will remember that until the past 25 years or so, homosexuality was understood to be the outcome of an abusive or neglectful childhood.
Not only psychiatric researchers, but everyday Americans noticed that most male homosexuals had troubled or nonexistent relationships with their fathers. They noticed that male homosexuals were unusually close to and emotionally enmeshed with their mothers. They noticed that those mothers often had overbearing, domineering, or melodramatic personalities.
If you’re younger than 40 and reading this with shock, I’m telling you the truth. This view was normal, but it was deliberately re-cast as “homophobia” and “ abuse against gays” in the past 25 years by the same activists who brought you “trans kids,” breast removal of healthy teen girls, and cross-sex hormones for teen boys who “are actually girls.”
That’s the set that brought you “born this way.”
'Science' fiction
As I write this piece, I’m struggling with how to give readers some citations. The trouble is that on the topic of homosexuality, just like with all things “COVID,” most people think there’s something called “the Science.” Even based right-wingers who rejected the authoritarian commands that tried to compel us to take mRNA “vaccines” and wear masks jump right to “show me THE SCIENCE” when the subject is the origin of homosexuality.
When the topic is this emotional, people stop thinking and start emoting. They start pretending that humans can’t know anything about the world, can’t recognize any patterns, and can’t come to any conclusions unless a Scientist published a Paper in a a Peer-Reviewed Journal.
Nevertheless, I’ll try. Surprising though it may be, the psychiatric and psychological literature, starting with Freud in the early 20th century, has long noted the pattern I described above. And most, though not all, male homosexuals were sexually abused as children or as minors. (I am a homosexual, but I was not molested as a child.)
Commentator and “ex-gay” Joseph Sciambra has published several bibliographies that round up much of this literature.
Normally, people don’t demand “the Science” on other subjects. No one demands “the Science” before noticing that most teenage drivers are more erratic and dangerous and therefore it pays to drive defensively around them. Everyone knows this, not because they read “the Science.” They know it because they have eyes, ears, and a brain that detects patterns.
Gay Old Party
Today, even conservatives are invested in the “born this way” gay narrative. While I’m pleased that the right wing came around on unfair laws that penalized homosexuals simply for being homosexuals (not laws that properly punished lewd public behavior), I’m not pleased that the average Republican now treats “born this way” as the end of the conversation.
The gay activist set has conquered the right wing. Those conservatives who find the position taken in this piece hard to bear have been manipulated emotionally by gay activists.
If you’re a conservative who finds this uncomfortable or “mean,” I think I know another reason why. You have homosexuals in your family whom you love (so do I, friends). Some of them are your children. And if they’re your children, you’re hearing an implicit accusation: “He’s saying I’m a terrible mother who made my son gay.”
No. I’m not (necessarily) saying that, even if you “feel” that I’m saying that. I don’t know you, and I don’t know how you raised your children. As a peer support coach, I’ve spoken to many moms and dads with gay children. These are loving moms and dads, but sometimes they made mistakes, or divorce or other trauma came to pass in the family.
Even the most loving parents will make mistakes, and the culture outside the parental home is ravening at your children and pushing them to adopt deviant and hedonistic lifestyles. Even the best parents can’t keep all of that out.
RELATED: Milo Yiannopolous dares to tell the truth about homosexuality
'Coming out' to my mother
Let me tell you the story of a night in 1986 when I “came out” to my mother at age 12. Align readers know from my past columns that my mother was an abusive, deranged woman who veered into psychopathy at times. But there were moments when a real woman with real feelings came through.
I sat on the avocado-green pleather daybed we used as a couch. My mother was in her armchair, the square glass ashtray and a pack of Merit Ultra Light 100s at her side. It was 8 p.m., and my mother had sent the other children to bed because I had something important to tell her. I think she knew what was coming.
I told my mother that I was gay and that I felt duty-bound to tell her the truth about it. Looking back at myself at 12, I shudder that I was already forming myself into a “gay identity” that would trap me in promiscuity, addiction, and emotional disturbance for decades to come. But I didn’t know any better then.
My mother started crying. It wasn’t her usual self-pitying kind of crying, and it wasn’t her angry crying that would escalate to slaps across the face and screamed insults.
“I worried for so long that I would do this to you, that I would make you gay,” she said while she looked down at her hands. “I never gave you a father, and the father figure I brought into your life turned out to be a monster.”
This was one of the few times in our life together that I can remember when my mother seemed genuine and honest and seemed to care about my well-being. I think her sense of responsibility and guilt was real (my mother wasn’t much for feeling normal parental responsibility).
“I’m not crying because you’re gay,” she said. “I’m crying because I know that life is going to be harder for you. I’m terrified that you’ll get a disease and die early. Please be careful.”
Because my mother had already parentified me, turning me into her “surrogate husband” and emotional caretaker (almost universal with personality-disordered mothers and their children), I started comforting her.
“You didn’t do anything to me, Mom. I was born this way,” I said.
And I believed it.
The limits of tolerance
It is true that my mother never sat down one day and said, “How can I derange my son and turn him into a homosexual?”
But what my mother feared did happen. The abuse, the depravation, the disordered emotions in my childhood home did make me a homosexual. How I choose to behave is my responsibility, but I did not “choose” to be sexually disordered this way. I was just a child.
If you’re reading this and you’re a homosexual or the parent of one or a loved one, and you don’t believe this applies to you, then go in peace. But please let those of us for whom this is important — let us have this conversation. Too many emotionally triggered people do everything they can to shut it down.
They accuse homosexuals like me of being “abusive” and of “hurting” them. No such thing is occurring. All the sympathy "allies" claim to have for homosexuals when we are “born this way gays” evaporates the moment we change our minds. They insult us and call us insane, with more vitriol than actual anti-gay bullies who beat us up in high school.
Silence equals death
We are going to have this conversation. We’re not going to be silenced or manipulated into being good, quiet little gay boys to fit someone else’s fantasy of having a “fabulous” best friend or son.
I lived the “fabulous” life, and it nearly killed me through alcoholism and self-destructive promiscuity. The way I lived brought despair. And I am typical. I am not “just an unusual gay.” My life story looks like the life stories of the majority of gay men. Yeah, I know. They tell you that isn’t true.
They’re lying because they’re terrified that something they’ve relied on too heavily to define themselves as human men may have been a lie all along. I know, because I lied this way too.
Yes, I’m still attracted to men and not attracted to women. I don’t believe I have the ability to change those subjective feelings, but I may find otherwise in time. For seven years I’ve been single and celibate, and I plan to remain so.
Others must choose their own path in their own time. Nothing I’ve written here can honestly be construed as an attack, or an assault, on other homosexuals or those who love them. The truth is not an act of hate or abuse.
What’s real and true matters, and it’s well past time to tell the truth about the lie we call “born this way.”
Christian students are pushing back — and universities are cracking
As one of the last conservative Christians serving as a tenured philosophy professor at a public university, I’ve had a front-row seat to the intellectual circus that critical theory and intersectionality have unleashed on higher education. I call it out on X and Substack. Professors from ASU’s Barrett Honors College and English Department have attacked me for doing so, calling me a “joke” and a “sloppy thinker.” This is the abuse anyone receives for defending God’s word.
But something new — and encouraging — is happening.
Christian students are speaking up. They are filing complaints. They openly quote Scripture in their assignments. And in this case, the university backed down.
Students are calling it out, too.
Last week at the University of Oklahoma, two instructors were removed for blatant viewpoint discrimination against a Christian student. If even 5% of cases like this see daylight, the DEI structure will start to crack within the academic year. If the polls are right, 97% of faculty identify as left or far left. What we see now — open disdain for Scripture — is not an anomaly. It’s the visible edge of a worldview that has captured entire campuses.
Beneath the surface sits the full intersectional framework, built on one central assumption: Christianity is the axle around which oppression supposedly turns.
The assignment that exposed the bias
The student’s psychology assignment was simple: a 650-word response to a study about gender norms and bullying among middle-schoolers.
She wrote: “Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth.”
She grounded her argument in Genesis, explained God’s creation of male and female, and correctly defined ezer kenegdo as “a helper equal to man.”
In short, she used: Scripture, theology, linguistic analysis, and a historical ethical framework. That is a well-reasoned paper in the humanities. Except when the worldview is Christian.
The instructor’s response?
“Your reaction paper contradicts itself, uses personal ideology over empirical evidence, and is at times offensive.”
And then the tell: “Every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association acknowledges that sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed.”
This is false. No serious biology text claims human sex is nonbinary. Disorders of development exist, but disorders do not replace design.
The deeper problem stood out like a vegan at a Texas barbecue: The Bible does not count as evidence. Even if the rubric justified deductions, dismissing Scripture as “personal ideology” exposed the bias.
Quote Judith Butler or Michel Foucault, and the academy nods solemnly. Quote the Bible, and you lose points.
The modern university’s dogma is simple: The Bible is never admissible. Everything else is.
Christians have known this for decades and quietly self-censored to protect their grades and academic futures. Which raises the question: How did we arrive here?
How we got here
Hostility toward Christianity did not appear overnight. It grew slowly through deliberate gatekeeping. Hiring committees screened out conservatives, shaping departments where 90%-97% of faculty became ideological clones. Administrators learned to view biblical faith as bigotry. DEI offices began to enforce viewpoint discrimination while denying it.
Fair hiring does not produce a 97% monoculture. That is ideological capture.
Christians allowed it because they confused niceness with faithfulness. Niceness — a word that never appears in Scripture — is fear disguised as virtue. It keeps people quiet so they can stay liked.
The left used a strategy straight from Marx, who took it straight from the enemy (“devil,” meaning accuser): Accuse Christians of oppression; rewrite history so the West is defined by its sins, never its virtues; demonize Scripture and its adherents; and weaponize shame to silence dissent.
It worked — for a time. The spell is breaking.
No neutrality
Many Christians assumed universities were neutral. They aren’t. They never were.
Every institution aligns with one of two cities: “the City of God” and “the City of Man.”
The City of Man controls the universities. This is not hyperbole. Romans 1 describes it plainly.
Those who reject God do not become neutral observers. They become evangelists for a rival religion. That rival religion has doctrines:
- The Bible is oppressive.
- Christianity is harmful.
- Gender is unlimited.
- Identity is self-created.
- The highest good is “authenticity.”
- The greatest sin is disagreement.
A new orthodoxy rules the campus, and the Oklahoma student violated it — praise God that she did.
Something has changed
Christian students are not taking the abuse quietly any more. They are speaking up. They are filing complaints. They are quoting Scripture openly in their assignments. And in this case, the university backed down. The instructors were removed.
Even on a left-dominated campus, viewpoint discrimination remains illegal — even if DEI treats it as sacred ritual.
If this continues, the monopoly may begin to break — maybe even by spring break.
RELATED: Why the kids are not all right — and Boomers still pretend nothing’s wrong
What you can do
As someone inside the system, here is my advice.
Follow those speaking publicly. We are few, but we are here — and we are not silent.
Equip your children. They will face hostility. They will be mocked. They will be graded down unless they can respond intelligently. Ask pointed questions on campus tours. Get administrators on record renouncing DEI discrimination — then hold them to it.
Consider alternatives. Trade schools, Christian colleges, apprenticeships, online programs — all viable. Many offer a serious education without forcing students through gender theory with Judith Butler 101. Seek professors who teach the great works with a biblical foundation.
Speak boldly. The gospel is not a whisper. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel,” the Apostle Paul writes in Romans, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
Christian students are rediscovering that courage. It is long past time the rest of us did, too.
Radical gender ideology is secretly radicalizing children — in their own homes
Modern gender activists have convinced much of the world — and themselves — that transgenders are suffering from gender dysphoria and truly believe they were born in the wrong body.
However, there’s a dark underbelly to transgenderism that BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes is more likely the reason for the surge of gender transitions among young men and women today.
And it’s readily available on your children’s devices.
“I no longer believe that most people today who say that they’re the opposite sex have true gender dysphoria. I believe that gender dysphoria exists as it is defined, or was defined, in the DSM5,” Stuckey says.
“Today it is, I believe, mostly due to pornography,” she explains. “It is due to a sexual fetish that they have developed over time, that there is now a very real algorithmic pipeline via Pornhub and other porn sites that push young men to seek more and more exciting dopamine hits.”
“So the pornography changes from something that is simple to something that might be more erotic, more violent, more subversive, and it gets into not only like different kinds of sexual deviancy in addition to just pornography, homosexuality, but then gender bending and gender fluidity,” she continues.
This presents a major issue as pornography has been widely normalized over the years as almost a rite of passage for young boys — but it can have devastating effects on their impressionable minds.
“I believe that is what is motivating the majority of transgenderism among men today,” she says, “And I just want you to know that this is not nuance, that this doesn’t deserve more of our empathy, that these people don’t deserve to be allowed into any women’s spaces at all.”
“I want you to stare at it in the eyes as sexual depravity and perversion,” she continues, adding, “That doesn’t have anything to do with gender. It has do with sex. And I’m not talking about biological sex. I’m talking about sexual fetish and pornography.”
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
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Psychology vs. scripture: What’s really behind depression?
Medication may be able to stabilize symptoms, but BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey and Dr. Greg Gifford believe the real healing when it comes to depression and hopelessness is in looking to God — not at ourselves.
“No one should hear this, watch this, listen to this, and think I’m saying depression doesn’t exist, because I’m not saying that. And no one should hear this, watch this, listen to this, and think I’m saying anxiety doesn’t exist, because I’m not saying that,” Gifford tells Stuckey.
“I’ve never said those things. What I’m saying is let’s start to uncover what’s going on in depression,” he continues, using physiological issues, vitamin deficiencies, and thyroid issues as examples that can have an effect on the mind.
Another example Gifford uses is some sort of cyst or growth on the brain that could be affecting mood regulation. However, physiological issues aren’t the only causes of depression or anxiety.
“So if I don’t have any known physiological problems, doctors can’t find anything, there’s nothing going on in the organ of my brain. Thyroid looks great. All my bloodwork comes back, and it looks nice. Then maybe, just maybe, I should be open to what’s happening in my mind,” he explains.
“What am I thinking about? What am I putting my hope in? Why? Why? Am I disappointed and so discouraged? Did something change in my life recently that was not physiological but was circumstantial and that’s what triggered this depression? Then you’re not talking about a biological problem at all. You’re actually talking about a spiritual problem,” he continues.
The solution, Gifford says, is taking “you back to the nature and the character of God and His promises.”
“We want to set you free that God is faithful. 2 Corinthians 1, He’s the God of all comfort. That His mercy is unending for you, that even in the low point, if someone’s watching this in bed, right, even in that low point, God draws people out of the mud and the muck and the mire and He sets them on a firm rock, which is Himself,” he says.
“That is the hope that people need. An antidepressant can’t touch that. We need to behold the glory of God, not behold the glory of our problems, not behold the glory of ourselves, not behold the glory of psychotropics,” he continues.
And while many people struggling with depression will turn to therapy over the Bible, the former often only makes it worse.
“One of the key features of depression is often just a constant dwelling on your own problems,” Stuckey says, pointing out that author Abigail Shrier made this point well in her book “Bad Therapy.”
“She says start class every day by asking your students how they feel, and you’re actually going to make them feel worse,” Gifford agrees. “And it’s like, Shrier’s not arguing for a biblical worldview, but there is something correct about that, which is a self-centered worldview makes me more miserable.”
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Christian counselors fight for freedom of speech before the Supreme Court
This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.
The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.
The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.
The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.
Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?
One‑sided freedom
Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.
Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.
Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?
If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.
Censored belief
I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.
I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.
I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.
And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.
Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.
Faith on trial
In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.
RELATED: Free speech is a core American value
That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.
The real test
No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.
Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?
If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.
The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.
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For Children, Surrogacy Always Creates A Deep, Gaping Hole Where A Mother Should Be
Like a sapling wounded early, my life bent and grew around the gaping wound of abandonment. It became a part of me.'Sex recession': Study suggests Americans have lost their mojo
Movies and television programs reportedly have significantly more sexual content, nudity, and immodesty now than those shown just a few decades ago. The so-called "adult entertainment" industry has, meanwhile, exploded, with one projection suggesting that it will grow from an estimated global market size of $58.8 billion in 2023 to $74.7 billion by 2030.
While depictions of sex are ubiquitous in the media, a new study suggests that the real thing is disappearing from the lives of everyday Americans.
The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.
Citing General Social Survey data, the Institute for Family Studies recently indicated that "Americans are having a record-low amount of sex."
Whereas in 1990, 55% of adults ages 18 to 64 reportedly were having sex at least once a week, that number reportedly dropped to less than 50% by the turn of the century. As of last year, the percentage of adults ages 18-64 having sex weekly had fallen all the way down to 37%.
When it comes to individuals ages 18-29 who reported not having sex in the last year, the number held steady at around 15% of respondents until 2010. However, between 2010 and 2024, that number skyrocketed to 24% in the General Social Survey.
There appear to be numerous factors at play, including shifting social norms; libido-killing prescription drugs; the pandemic; decreasing alcohol consumption; the interpersonal impact of social media, gaming, and the smartphone; and pornography. The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.
Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, and Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the IFS, noted in a 2019 article in the Atlantic that married people have sex more often but that the share of adults who are married was falling to record lows.
Whereas 46% of married men and women ages 18-64 reported having weekly sex, only 34% of their unmarried peers reported the same, said the new IFS study. However, married couples are also facing a so-called "sex recession," as 59% of married adults ages 18-64 reportedly had sex once a week in the period between 1996 and 2008.
RELATED: American fertility rate hits all-time low as Dems clamor for foreign replacements
The new IFS study noted that younger generations are having less sex than their predecessors did in part because of a "decline in steady partnering, especially in marriage, and a decline in sexual frequency within couples."
This "sex recession" has some obvious implications besides youngsters' joylessness.
Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July revealed that U.S. fertility rates dropped to an all-time low in last year, with 1.599 children being born per woman. For comparison, the latest reported fertility rates in Australia, England and Wales, Canada, and China are 1.5, 1.44, 1.26, and 1.01, respectively.
The fertility rate necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals is 2.1.
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How To Talk About Transgender Ideology With Your Kids, Neighbors, And Friends
Focusing on potential underlying traumas is precisely what the LGBT industry refuses to do.Stop blaming dopamine — kids aren’t addicts; they’re bored
Nowadays, it seems we can be addicted to anything — not just alcohol and drugs, but pornography, random internet browsing, video games, and smartphones. Academic research papers have investigated a wide range of other behaviors including gambling, but also “dance addiction,” “fishing addiction,” “milk tea addiction,” and “cat addiction.” One cheeky paper used the standard medical criteria to show that young people are “addicted” to their real-life friends.
While this trend involves many factors, perhaps the single most important claim that has transformed what might be devoted or enthusiastic behavior into a presumed medical case of addiction is the presence of the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Parents and others are at risk of missing more fundamental mental health issues that could be at the root of the obsessive behavior, potentially harming the very children they seek to help.
Health experts and the popular press tell us that fun activities can give us “dopamine hits” and that overindulging can result in “dopamine blowout.” Indulging too much in naughty activities (somehow, it’s always naughty activities) may create a “dopamine deficit.”
To cite a few of many examples: A Washington Post podcast declared that “dopamine surges” explain why “you can’t stop scrolling, even though you know you should.” The Guardian reported that Silicon Valley is “keen to exploit the brain chemical” to keep us hooked on tech. Earlier this month, CNN told readers that “an addiction expert says it might be time for a ‘dopamine fast.’”
The problem with this scientific-sounding explanation for an alleged explosion in addictive behaviors is that it’s not supported by science. Solid research connecting dopamine spikes to drugs and alcohol — that is, the capacity of one chemical to ignite another — has not been shown to occur in similar ways with other behaviors. Drug use is fundamentally and physiologically different from behaviors that do not rely on pharmaceutical effects. This has been confirmed in humans: Technology, such as video games or social media, simply doesn’t influence dopamine receptors the way illicit substances do.
Experts say what we are seeing instead is pseudoscience that appears to legitimize a moral panic about behaviors that trouble certain segments of society. By falling for this pseudoscience, parents and others are at risk of missing more fundamental mental health issues that could be at the root of the obsessive behavior, potentially harming the very children they seek to help.
“Addiction is an important clinical term with a troubled and weighty history,” said Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist and co-author of a brief explainer of what dopamine does and doesn’t do. “People enduring genuine addiction struggle to be taken seriously or viewed sympathetically at the best of times, so to apply their very serious condition to much more benign actions like scrolling TikTok makes this worse.”
Burnett likens current narratives about dopamine and technology to “science garnish,” effectively adding a dash of scientific language to nonsense beliefs. “It’s the informational equivalent of sprinkling parsley on a lasagna that’s 90% horse offal,” he said. “It may look nicer, but it isn’t.”
The pseudoscience, however, does play a useful role for parents and others who seek to restrict the behaviors they find disturbing. After all, “don’t do X because it will dangerously rewire the reward circuits of your brain and cause addiction” is more compelling than “don’t do X because I don’t like it and think you are wasting your time.”
Growing mistrust of experts
At a time when science has been riven by a series of scandals involving unreliable and falsified research at universities, including Stanford and Harvard, the public is having a harder time distinguishing scientific truth from pseudoscience. As growing numbers of Americans question the veracity of many well-established findings, such as the safety of vaccines, the popularity of the dopamine myth amounts to another misreading of science to serve other purposes in a culture desperate for simplistic moral answers.
Such answers can be found in bookshelves full of titles like “Dopamine Detox” and “Dopamine Reset.” These experts warn us that activities we think make us happy are actually making us unhappy in the long term because we’re doing dopamine wrong.
Advice sites are quite explicit about this: “You can get dopamine either from rich sources like meditating, exercising, or doing something that is meaningful to you and that serves you in the long run. Or you can get dopamine from self-sabotaging activities like eating junk food, scrolling social media mindlessly, or anything that provides pleasure instantly or in the short term. The choice is yours.” At the extreme, people may go on “dopamine detoxes,” avoiding fun activities for some length of time in hopes of resetting their dopamine.
It’s time to put the pseudoscience on dopamine in the dumpster and let kids be kids.
It is not surprising that dopamine has been seized on as a ready explanation for human behavior. Dopamine is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter in the brain. It is involved in a number of behaviors and functions, ranging from movement to memory to executive functioning. It’s also involved in pleasure centers of the brain, particularly anticipatory pleasure. Think of it like the feeling of a child awaiting Christmas, the giddy excitement. That’s often different from Christmas Day itself, which feels less exciting, even if it’s pleasant.
The role played by dopamine in the brain, however, is complicated. Brain functions rarely work out to one-to-one relationships between a single chemical and some horrible outcome. And certainly not in ways that happen to coincidentally flatter people’s pre-existing moral conceits.
Much of what we know about dopamine comes not from humans, but from experiments on rats — which cannot, of course, peruse the internet or use smartphones. In a series of graphs produced by the National Institute on Drug Addiction back in the early 2000s, the difference in activation of dopamine for addictive drugs versus pleasant and normal activities is well documented.
They show that administering stimulant drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine causes massive elevations in dopamine after the drug is introduced. These levels spike to over 300% of baseline for cocaine and a whopping 1,000% for amphetamine.
By contrast, the increase in dopamine levels from routine activities such as food or sex is much lower, about 150% of baseline for food and 200% for sex. And this increase occurs in anticipation of the activity, not afterward.
So yes, there is a kernel of truth in the dopamine/addiction story. Some drugs, as well as routine pleasurable activities, definitely involve dopamine systems. But the key difference is the timing of when and how much of the dopamine is released — before versus after the activity — and this distinction is almost always ignored in scaremongering stories about rampant addiction.
“Addictive drugs are different from natural rewards (e.g. food, water, sex) in that [dopamine] will not stop firing after repeated consumption of the drug, the drive to consume is not satiated because they continue increasing dopamine levels, resulting in likelihood of compulsive behaviors from using drugs and not as likely when using natural rewards,” according to an article in the Journal of Biomedical Research.
Pete Etchells, a professor of psychology at Bath Spa University in England and the author of “Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time,” says research doesn’t support the claim that dopamine drives addiction in other pleasurable behaviors that don’t rely on pharmaceutical effects.
“The role that it plays is really complex, to the point that neuroscientists no longer really consider it the sole or universal factor to consider,” he said. “So when we try to say dopamine ‘surge’ = pleasure surge = addiction, that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny.”
Is everything addictive?
Part of the confusion over the science comes from the widespread way the term "addiction" is used. Long-standing debates are still ongoing about whether the criteria used to identify substance dependencies still work when applied to everyday hobbies and behaviors such as work, exercise, shopping, sex, video games, or social media.
The problem is apparent when looking at the basic criteria the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual uses for addictive disorders. A person needs to answer “yes” to five of the nine questions below to be diagnosed. In this example, X is the sport or hobby you happen to be passionate about and spend some money on.
- Do you think about X (i.e., your passionate hobby) when not doing X?
- Do you feel bad (sad, anxious) when unable to do X?
- Do you find yourself spending more time/money on X?
- Do you notice you’ve kept doing X even when you meant to stop or cut back?
- Have you given up other hobbies/activities to do X?
- Have you continued to do X despite it causing obvious problems (i.e., health, work, family commitments)?
- Have you deceived others about the time you’ve spent doing X?
- Do you find yourself doing X to relieve negative moods or stress?
- Have you experienced the loss of a job/school/relationship because of X?
If X is heroin, a yes answer to all of these questions leads to bad results. But it’s not clear that this is true for all the questions when X is eating pizza, reading a book, working out, or playing a video game. If the answer is yes to the question about reading books to relieve negative moods or stress, that’s good. People should do something to relieve negative moods.
The question is whether things like video games or social media are more like heroin or more like books. At present, the best evidence suggests the latter. Older adults may not like these activities, but there’s little evidence that they’re addictive in any analogy to substance abuse. There’s no tolerance and withdrawal from technology. They don’t interact with dopamine systems the same way.
Parents may believe that taking a smartphone or game console away will 'fix' their kids’ problems, leaving the real underlying issues unaddressed.
Making matters more complicated is the psychology of why some people overdo some pleasant behaviors. It’s widely believed that behavioral addictions are a feature of the thing that users are using. To be sure, smartphones, for example, are designed with elements like push notifications to hold the attention of users. However, users can easily adjust these settings, and they are hardly an innovation of modern technology. Books often end chapters mid-scene for the same reason.
But such addiction mainly appears to be a feature of the person exhibiting the problems, research shows. Cases of technology overuse can be a symptom of other underlying mental health problems like anxiety and depression, which tend to predate the specific technology addiction. Constant texting is not something done to teenagers by machines via dopamine. By contrast, time spent on technology is a poor predictor of mental health issues.
History of moral panics
As it purports to provide a simple explanation for complex issues, dopamine pseudoscience can be linked to previous moral panics, particularly regarding the new habits of youth. Fear sells, as Frederic Wertham showed in the 1950s when his book “Seduction of the Innocent” gained wide traction for its spurious claim that connected comic books to delinquency and homosexuality.
Today, many schools are enthusiastically attempting to shift blame for their own failures onto technology. At present, evidence suggests that cellphone bans in schools don’t work as well as expected, for instance. Public records requests have revealed that even as some teachers and administrators promote these policies, data from their own schools indicates that some student outcomes worsen after cellphone bans, rather than improve.
RELATED: How Baby Boomers became unlikely digital addicts
The false narratives on addiction may end up hurting children in more profound ways, too. They can distract families from the real psychological issues youth face. Parents may believe that taking a smartphone or game console away will “fix” their kids’ problems, leaving the real underlying issues unaddressed. These efforts may even backfire, removing stress reduction and socialization outlets that youth rely on.
It’s time to put the pseudoscience on dopamine in the dumpster and let kids be kids. Some may have mental health issues that need to be addressed, and others, well, mostly need some freedom to explore the world on their own terms.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
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