The Neuroscience of Internet Addiction

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After photographing the human footprint on Antarctica, Copeland believes the planet will be fine; it’s the rest of us he’s worried about.

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SEBASTIAN COPELAND

Sebastian Copeland is a photographer and environmental activist. Copeland grew up in France and Britain, and graduated from UCLA in 1987 with a major in film. Throughout the 1990’s, Copeland directed commercials – everything from soft drinks to sportswear – as well as music videos. He is also known for his celebrity portraiture; he’s taken pictures of Sandra Bullock, Kate Bosworth, and Orlando Bloom (who is also his cousin), among others. In recent years, Copeland has focused on environmental activism. He serves on the Board of Directors of Global Green USA and recently published Antarctica: The Global Warning

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What was the strongest impression of your trip to Antarctica


Copeland: Well Antarctica yields an extraordinarily magical and otherworldly landscape.  It is . . . It is a dream for a photographer and an environmentalist because it is like traveling into a different world . . . another world; essentially what could be seen almost as another planet.  There’s never been an indigenous human population in Antarctica, and yet it is teeming with animal life unperturbed and unchallenged by the human presence; and not conditioned to the predatory characteristics of the . . . of the human activities.  ___________ that is.  And so    . . . So animals, they are simply not scared of humans is ultimately what I’m saying.  So to . . . To travel through this type of otherworldly environment that has been particularly antagonistic to human life or its . . . its cold and its condition.  But to be in a world of ice that is isolated from the rest of the world by a body of water that is particularly challenging where the conditions are cold.  And yet to see this vibrant animal life forces you to ponder the relationship of humanity to the rest of the world.  I mean we are one in 30 million species inhabiting this planet.  We are, intellectually it would allegedly seem, superior; but ultimately we are only one in this order of this planet who is hosting us, and who has not been hosting us all that long incidentally.  We are only 150,000 years old to the earth’s 4.5 billion years.  And when you travel in Antarctica, you cannot help but somehow get connected to that principle, because the Antarctica the landscape has been in its present form more or less for a very long time.  And . . . And as humans we are relatively new to this environment and very disposable ultimately.  The animal world functions very well without us there, and we are literally tourists into this other aspect of what is incidentally our garden in our backyard as well as the rest of the planet.  But one is stricken by the lack of human imprint, at least in a direct way; because although remotely, our activities are being felt in that environment – at the very least physically where we’re not there.  So it’s pretty magical to be traveling into that environment as such.


Question: What scenes most disturbed you?


Copeland: Well that’s a good question.  You know one thing that comes to mind is we traveled into an environment in a place called Port __________ in Antarctica.  I went there twice on two different trips.  And ___________ . . . Antarctica at the turn of the last century or the century before that – that is late 1800s and early 1900s – was a vibrant whaling environment. The Norwegians and __________ in particular who was an inventor and invented, amongst other things the exploding harpoon, contributed to the dissemination of the whale population of the Northern Hemisphere.  So the Scandinavians set their sites to Antarctica and set up what turned out to be a very productive for them whaling environment.  So true to tradition for the human lack of accountability, when you travel in some of these areas, they are . . . there’s a lot of human waste that has been there for over a century in the form of barrels – whale oil barrels that have been left over; or __________ that have been driven into the rocks and whatnot.  And so there are environments like this that are just littered with a lot of those barrels, and it’s been left behind.  And it’s a little shocking.  In modern day it would be like finding, you know, steel barrels left over and just polluting the land . . . as of course we do ...

[treebendsinthewind]

I think it's hillarious a lot of the comments say this guy is too boring, when it is a 5 minute clip...the internet really can take a toll on patience

[KyleAButler]

I never knew how dependent I am on the internet until I tried to stop for a whole day. It was physical uncomfortable, I need my dopamine fix.

[VICE-HRO]

The more I am on the internet, the more I feel I lose introspective and critical thinking. Essentially I feel more dumb when I am indulging on the internet. The way I communicate becomes closer to a child I feel and I begin to use more simplier words more often than ussually.

[altargirl]

If there was internet when Shakespeare was alive, there would probably be no Romeo and Juliet. 

[qthequokka]

The Internet makes us "lose the ability to pay attention to one thing for a sustained period of time."

[qthequokka]

Internet harms memories! That's why I feel I basically skipped the last year or two!

[thehouseofhoops]

Part of the problem is that there isn't much to do for fun in most towns. The internet is everything on a silver platter.

[ishtarbabylon]

It's like a drug..You get an endorphin rush from having the ability to look up anything you want to see instantly..well for me anyway lol

[destryed]

I read his book The Shallows and it is one of the most mind-blowing book about technology (esp, internet) i've ever read in my life.

[jfjvhgsieofl]

I think it's sad that we even have to ask if the loss of solitary contemplation is a bad thing.

[alessiodebonis]

Today, I had a conversation about new technology in schools with a guy, they seem to be using computers and tablets instead of books. I can't agree with that, even if I am deeply addicted to the internet and technology, I know it hurts the mind... The society, the media, parents, educators, psychologist openly support technology... I don't know I'm confused... how they can support this if it harm us? I don't understand it. and I can't get my head around it. In my personal perspective, we are all addicted to technology and we can't see it, so it comes the denial. They seem to be talking about artificial intelligent that will kill us in the future and almost no one is talking about the fact it is harming all our society right now.

[DrinkElectrolytes]

Nice, this explains why I'm so spazzy so often and why meditation is so incredibly powerful for my focus... it's because I'm so out of balance, I need to train the part of my mind that can focus on one thing and eliminate distractions.

[doublevision]

It's astonishing and shocking that the education system is so ridiculously far behind that you still dont learn any of this in school, even though you can see the negative cognitive developments of students worsening with every single year. The education system is at least 30 years behind. You must feel bad for teachers in towns nowadays, many of the students are lost causes and they couldnt care less about their situation. Who knows what'll become of them.

I was addicted to the internet for years on end, I think what the guy doesnt mention is that the internet provides instant gratification with little to no actual benefit at all (it rewires your brain to shy away from effort), not to mention there are very rarely any hardships or challenges, content and videogames only become easier and easier to the point that you barely have to rack your brain at all anymore and just vegetate on autopilot while staring at screens for hours on end.
I remember telling myself I rather watch videos and streams instead of reading a book is because books just arent really my thing anymore but the truth is that screentime consumption is simply far easier, there is no effort involved in scrolling through social media and the gain is instant gratification from all the pointless things you see. Internet addiction will lead people away from paths they wouldve otherwise chosen and it encourages you to let go off real social interaction because it takes time and effort while watching a podcast will give you a shadowy type feeling of being part of a group without having to leave your comfort zone which in turn will lead to ever increasint social anxiety and shying away from responsibility.

[Vittoria]

This is, by far, the most helpful and informative video on this issue, because it's so comprehensive. He addresses the physiological and intellectual effects and dangers inherent in too much emotional and intellectual involvement with the internet. (I had to laugh at myself; at precisely the part where he talks about attention gaps, I had to replay because I wasn't paying attention!) Thank you SO much for sharing.

[ZeroSumJ]

So how can we ween ourselves off so that we regain the ability to pay attention but still maintain access to useful information?

[thetatar]

Unfortunately this is becoming even more true with time even if compulsory information seeking disorder is an extreme form of internet addiction. I hope that people in the future will more often know that internet addiction is an addiction on a similar level as casino addiction and with that, will be more able to cope with it ☹️

[ryanw.]

Very interesting video. I don't think it's fair to lump everything online into one category though. There are tons of things to do online that require time and focus. I think that social media sites, news clips and shopping sites are a definite source of some ADD issues our culture is having though.

[mactheartofwarfare]

just another drug to suppress negative feelings

[MacGunter]

You have to find stuff to replace the time spent on the computer. You can stop it at once as long as you find something to replace it. I went from 10 hours or more of gaming/per day to 4 hours/per week recently. I decided to go outside and exercise, now I wonder why I was so foolish spending all of my time on the computer. I still use the internet because it is an invaluable source of information and research.

[dissdad]

Would be cool to have a summary of those facts in text-form, so that one could print it out and read it offline.