‘While the DOH is the government’s overall technical authority on health, the Office of Secretary Herbosa doesn’t seem aware that mental health forms part of their services.’

WE’VE been running a series of articles about the unregulated use of smartphones and social media addiction among our future nation builders, for which I find it prudent to hear from the Department of Health by formally sending a query addressed to Secretary Teodoro Herbosa.

In my email (9 September), I asked the Office of Secretary Herbosa for some data regarding the unregulated use of smartphones and social media addiction as well as its adverse impact on the health of its users, particularly children and adolescents. In fairness, my email got a response which to me is an indication of professionalism, although I needed to call Secretary Herbosa’s office almost every day to follow up.

To my dismay, however, the DOH through Secretary Herbosa’s Communication Office, particularly the Media Relations and Management Section, by its admission doesn’t even have data on social media addiction as a mental health issue.

Allow me to share their answer via email (13 September) to my query:

“We appreciate your interest in understanding this important topic. At present, the Department of Health (DOH) Program on Mental Health does not have specific data on the use of smartphones among children. However, we are actively coordinating with our National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) to explore potential recommendations and interventions related to this matter.

“In the meantime, we recommend forwarding your inquiry to the Department of Education (DepEd), as they may have more detailed information and data on the impact of smartphones in educational settings and among students. Their insights could provide a comprehensive understanding of the situation.

Thank you very much!”

To my surprise, Secretary Herbosa’s Communication Office doesn’t seem to realize that addiction per se is a serious health concern.

The DOH’s mandate is to ensure access to basic public health services by Filipinos through providing quality health care and regulating all health services and products.

While the DOH is the government’s overall technical authority on health, the Office of Secretary Herbosa doesn’t seem aware that mental health forms part of their services.

For one, the DOH may not be able to formulate an approach to address the problem of unregulated use of smartphones and social media addiction among children and youth aged five to 20 years old, if they are not even aware of how many kids are suffering from its adverse effects.

Worse, DOH told me that they’re forwarding my inquiry to DepEd which, according to them, may have information and the data I sought from them, and this made me wonder if teachers are capable of treating mental disorders.

After I got nothing from the DOH, I checked web-based sources from where I discovered that mobile games and social media apps using smartphones are designed to maintain that compulsion driven by molecules in our brains.

One molecule in particular is usually blamed for this behavior: dopamine. The neurotransmitter has been nicknamed the “feel-good” molecule due to its role in the brain’s reward system.

But it’s not just about pleasure – dopamine receptors in the brain also get a hit with the anticipation of something pleasurable. And that’s what keeps us checking our phones.

In another web source, Stanford University Behavioral Science Professor Dr. Anna Lembke said the smartphone is akin to a hypodermic needle, delivering an endless supply of “digital dopamine” to billions of users.

“Digital media activates the same part of our brains as drugs and alcohol, releasing dopamine,” says Dr. Lembke, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, adding:

“With repeated use, our brains adapt by downregulating dopamine transmission which they can do by shrinking their dopamine receptors.”

Dr. Lembke further said, “With enough ongoing exposure, our brains enter a dopamine deficit state, characterized by depression, anxiety, insomnia, irritability and craving. Once that happens, we’re reaching for digital media, not as a tool to accomplish a specific task… but to get out of the dopamine deficit state and stop feeling bad.”

Behavioral addictions like compulsive social media use are something for DOH Secretary Herbosa and his Communications Team to ponder. But from how it looks, the Department of Health doesn’t seem convinced of the urgent need to address the problem by discussing the unregulated use of smartphones and social media addiction among students and the way they’re taking cocaine and methamphetamine addictions seriously.

The clinical terms I mentioned in the previous paragraphs clearly show there’s not much that DepEd can do about it. But the DOH can, and that’s their job.