Name of the Event: Live Discussion on Addictive Behaviours
Date of Event: 8th April 2023, 6 PM IST
No. of attendees: 20
As a part of Project Wisdom, interns on the first day of the Discussion Hub Internship convened in a Zoom meeting to discuss addictive behaviors of concern. Dr. Munmun Rai, a teaching assistant from MedBound hosted the meeting. Dr. Munmun Rai gave an introduction to addictive behaviors and sparked up a conversation on the social media frenzy.
Lalitha Lavanya Shree, an MBBS student said Instagram and other social networking platforms give instant happiness, which is why people are getting addicted to them.
Snehal H Jahagirdar, a first-year MBA Healthcare Management student from Symbiosis Skills and Professional University Pune, opined that watching videos and giving reactions/feedback back to back makes people emotionless and they tend to express lesser in real-life situations.
Dr. Munmun agreed, citing the example of a spoilt child. She further asked if giving children mobile phones at an early age is beneficial.
Faiza R, a biomedical science postgraduate shared her experience of her niece with a mobile phone who often throws tantrums.
Manu Sharan Srivastava, an MBBS graduate added that his niece also demands TV while eating. Dr. Munmun said this is an added risk factor for obesity.
Further, the topic of discussion moved onto shopping and gambling. The interns came up with their thoughts on the same giving real-life examples of people who took their” hobbies” to the next level ending up making themselves and those around them miserable. The burden all of these have on social and family relationships was also discussed. The session also looked at the lesser-examined topics of work and co-dependency from an addiction point of view.
Dr. Ravikiran, an MBBS graduate from Kharkiv National Medical University, Kharkiv, Ukraine, suggested that different people getting into different addictive behaviors and some others being relatively immune to them might arise from genetic causes. Dr. Munmun opined that it might be more habitual in origin than genetic.
Arpita Moitra, a microbiology postgraduate from the University of Calcutta added that it might be due to individual experiences and coping mechanisms that lead to people picking up different types of addiction. It was also noted that peer pressure also might be a big factor in deciding this. The biological changes seen in addiction were also briefly discussed; it includes brain changes like grey matter atrophy.
Treatment for addictive behavior should mainly consist of counseling and self-meditation, in Dr. Munmun's opinion. Exercising self-control as in Dopamine detox would be helpful. The craving for instant happiness should come down and happiness that comes with effort and time is to be popularized. Other methods like app timers can also be incorporated, interns added.
The session came to a conclusion with Grace Ike, a chemistry graduate from Nigeria emphasizing the need to discipline oneself.