Rather than giving us pleasure itself, as is commonly thought, dopamine motivates us to do things we think will bring pleasure. As the brain’s major reward and pleasure neurotransmitter, it’s what drives us to seek pizza when we’re hungry and sex when we’re aroused. Scientists use dopamine to mea...

She wrote Dopamine Nation because she believes her recovering patients – whether 60-something Jacob who built a masturbation machine to satiate his sex habit; teenaged Delilah, who couldn’t get out of bed unless she was high on cannabis; or Chi, who bought thousands of cheap consumer goods online...

In her new book, Dopamine Nation, emphasises that we are now all addicts to a degree. She calls the smartphone the “modern-day hypodermic needle”: we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet. Since the turn of the millennium, behavio...