Kick the algorithm where it hurts
Break free from the “dopamine crash loop” with neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff.
with Mike Hodgkinson • Thu 24 July, 2025
Hey Big Thinkers,
Around this time of year, many of us embrace the summer by hiking into the great outdoors for a mind-and-body reset. Oh yes, we say to ourselves, a long-overdue hit of hawk-song and ozone and stargazing will apply a restorative salve to our hunched and gadget-bound digital work-lives. Unless, of course, it all goes south and Mother Nature bares her fangs, leaving us pining for concrete and gibbering that immortal lament from Withnail and I: “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake.”
In all likelihood, the untamed wild will be the least of our problems. As we stare up at the ceiling of our tent, ensconced in our wilderness of choice, the thing that’s most likely to keep us awake is not going to be the furtive moose who side-eyed us earlier that morning, or our paranoia that prairie dogs have figured out how to steal our tent stakes and repurpose them as daggers. No, the thing that’s going to perturb us the most is our inability to scroll, because our phones have no signal. Even when confronted with all the planetary beauty that Earth allows, our one big annual shot at the sublime will be undone by the engineered highs that are straining to erupt from our hijacked neural tunnels, like cocaine moles on a fix-quest.
This week, neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff explains exactly how social media and the dopamine system have conspired to chain us to a mindless “crash-loop” hamster wheel. More than that, she reveals how we can break the habit without resorting to such desperate measures as hurling our phones into the nearest glacial lake.
Onward,
Mike
(Filling in for Stephen, who’s gone camping in a remote National Park)
THE BIG HIT
How to escape the “dopamine crash loop” and rewire your curiosity
Dopamine, explains Anne-Laure Le Cunff, is a double-edged sword. Released in the network of regions that comprise the brain’s reward system, it makes us feel good — for example — when we’re on the verge of a great discovery. Eureka! On the other hand, when hijacked by the “variable reward schedules” imposed on us by social media, dopamine creates a compulsion to measure out our lives in mindless thumb-scrolls. The good news, according to Le Cunff, is that we can consciously redirect our reward system towards curiosity and meaningful knowledge. So the choice is yours: keep that thumb twitching until you hate yourself for cooing at the drowsy kitten you already knew would sleep-tumble off that cheap sofa … or retrain your compulsive brain to learn useful new things.
Fast Stats
2012 – The year an experiment was conducted that proved the universe is not the same forward and backward in time.
2 – The number of case studies that show hiring seasoned industry veterans can set up your startup for a greater chance of success.
1864 – The year John Wilkes Booth had a mysterious meeting that changed him from beloved actor to Confederate conspirator.
3 – The steps it takes to train for the CIA, according to espionage agent Andrew Bustamante.
THE BIG PLOT
Is this acre in England really American territory?
There are many fascinating details attached to the acre of “American soil” located a stone’s throw from Windsor Castle in leafiest, royal-most England. Presented to the U.S. in 1965 by Queen Elizabeth II, in memory of JFK, the plot bears a scarlet oak with foliage that turns deep red every November, the month of the assassination. The memorial block, made of Portland stone inscribed with a portion of text from JFK’s inaugural address, weighs seven tons. In 1215 AD, an arrow’s flight away, King John sealed the Magna Carta, prompting a chain of political and philosophical thought that led through the centuries to the U.S. Constitution. Incredible details all, but only one question needs asking: If by some bizarre accident of wayward midwifery you were born on this very acre, would you automatically become an American citizen? Frank Jacobs has the answer.
MINI PHILOSOPHY
The Tree of Kink: What science teaches us about fetish clusters
By Jonny Thomson
Let’s say you’re at a dinner party, and there are ten people around the table. Each is sexually active and randomly selected from the general public. Given that, around six or seven of the guests will have fantasies about BDSM (bondage, domination, submission, etc.). Four will have had at least one BDSM experience. Roughly two will have a foot fetish, and one person will have an underwear fetish.
Tuck in, it’s time for the starter. Let’s talk about the weather.
People have sex, people have fetishes, and we often don’t talk about either. We especially don’t treat it as a scientifically rigorous and important subject in itself. Which is why we look at it in this week’s Mini Philosophy interview with the sex worker, Aella. Read on to find out more.
Subscribe to Mini Philosophy on Substack for even more from Jonny Thomson.
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THE BIG GAME
Gaming cancer: How video games and citizen science could help cure disease
What’s the greatest game of all time? Some would quickly say chess, with its medieval aesthetic and vast archive of cunning strategies. Or perhaps the original Space Invaders, a masterpiece of relentless simplicity and laser-cannon satisfaction. How about Go, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, GTA, DOTA, or WoW … every contender driven by our evolutionary desire to solve tricky problems. But as professor Jeff Yoshimi speculates, the greatest of all games may yet to be played: a game that cures cancer. “There are thousands of problems relating to cancer, and there are thousands of approaches to game design and genres of game, so the potential is vast,” Yoshimi, who explores various attempts to gamify drug discovery in his book, Gaming Cancer, writes. “Even without a background in biology, you might have skills in art or design, or just be really good at games. That’s enough to contribute.”
Mike Hodgkinson is the commissioning editor at Big Think.
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Gaming cancer: Survival rates have doubled, trebled and quadrupled and you don't call that a cure?
The entire discipline of Freakonomics is based on the philosophy of a sex worker, meeting her being the only interesting thing that ever happened in Steven Levitt's life.