From Camels to Clicks: What Smoking Ads Taught Me About Social Media

Dr. Dan Harrison - Lumenara.

In 1950s America, doctors were used to sell cigarettes. One ad proudly claimed, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” It legitimised addiction using the language of expertise. We look back now in disbelief. How did we not see the harm?

Today, we hand children a device before they’re old enough to understand who they are. We restrict them from playing outside, yet give them unlimited access to algorithmic environments engineered to shape their attention, self-image, and emotions.

There are only two industries that call their customers users - Rehab's for those fighting addiction, and software development companies.

The Default Mode Network: A Powerful Engine With No Brake

The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions that activates when our mind wanders — replaying conversations, worrying about the future, comparing ourselves to others. It’s essential for reflection, memory, and meaning-making. But overactive DMN activity, especially in the presence of negative inputs, can trap us in loops of anxiety, rumination, and distorted self-perception¹.

Research shows that social media use can alter DMN connectivity, particularly in adolescents with lower mental wellbeing². The more vulnerable our state — through depression, stress, or isolation — the more amplified this effect becomes.

A Generation Growing Up Inside the Feed

Adolescence is when we build our core identity. But today’s teens are forming that identity inside a digital feed — a world that rewards surface over depth, curation over truth, speed over reflection. The DMN, meant to help us form our sense of self, now becomes a filter for social performance and constant comparison³.

The irony is that we won’t let them walk to the park alone, or ride their bikes down the street, but we let them speed down a cognitive freeway at 150 km/h, eyes wide open, passing billboards of other people’s lives every few seconds.

A Three-Month Digital Detox Changed Me

After years of digital overload, I stepped away — from social media, substances, even ambient stimulation. Over three months, my nervous system recalibrated. My attention returned. I felt presence without performance. I noticed the mental narrator quieten — and something more grounded emerge.

Returning to the online world, I felt a jarring dissonance. The bar had shifted. I could see the algorithm’s fingerprint on my thoughts. I could feel my DMN — once overloaded — becoming a space of insight again, not insecurity.

So What Can We Do Instead?

• Name the voice: Help kids (and yourself) spot when the inner critic is just the algorithm echoing back.
• Build screen-free rituals: Walks, sketchbooks, conversations. Make boredom a sacred space.
• Create more than you consume: Painting, writing, moving — any act of creation reclaims agency.
• Practice gratitude and concern: Thinking of others (genuinely) calms the self-loop that fuels DMN overload.
• Model boundaries: If we can’t put our phones down, how can we expect kids to?

We’re not going back to a pre-digital world. But we can decide how we show up in this one — and how we shape the minds of the next generation.

Let’s not wait until our children look back at us the way we now look at those Camel ads — stunned that we let it go on for so long.