Shadowing Practice: This Will Make You Quit Social Media - Andrew Huberman - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Just how triggering are our phones when it comes to dopamine?
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Okay, great question.
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We often hear that, you know, that social media is getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit.
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When we first get on social media for the first time or after a long period of time, the amount of dopamine that's released we think is quite substantial.
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It's novel.
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Remember, dopamine is about novelty, surprise, and the sense that we are on some exciting track.
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That's what dopamine is really about.
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It puts us into states of readiness, anticipation, looking, seeking, et cetera, almost always for things outside the confines of our skin.
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Just to contrast it maybe for a bit more of a future discussion, serotonin does the opposite a lot of serotonin in our brain and body, typically it makes us feel satisfied,
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sated, and more quiescent, comfortable with what we have in our own immediate sphere and within us, right?
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The comfort of a good meal, the food you have, dopamine is about go, go, go.
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If you look at somebody who's high on cocaine or methamphetamine, it's all about pursuit.
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because that's a very dopaminergic drug.
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You look at somebody who's taken a drug, and I'm not suggesting people do this, but it really ramps up serotonin.
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Let's say a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
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Prozac, Zoloft, et cetera.
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The side effects of those drugs, if the dosages are too high, lack of appetite, lack of libido, kind of meh about life, you know, then so they'll adjust the dose down.
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That's because those are serotonergic drugs.
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So in general, when we are in pursuit of things, dopamine is quite high.
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So, Now you have to remind me your question, 'cause I've set up the dopamine serotonin parallel.
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- Cell phones.
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- Ah, cell phones, yes.
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Forgive me.
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So the thing about cell phones is when you first get on there, and you have, let's say, no Wi -Fi on the flight or something, and you land, it can actually be quite stimulating.
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You get a lot of dopamine.
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Oh, there's this.
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Oh, there's that.
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But very quickly, when you're scrolling on social media, you're no longer getting the novelty, but you're continuing to do it, and you almost don't know why you're doing it.
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At that point, it shifts over to something that's a bit more like an obsessive compulsive behavior,
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where we can define an obsessive compulsive behavior where the obsession leads to a compulsion.
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but the acting out of the compulsion merely serves to increase the obsession.
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This is very different than being obsessed with food or obsessed with cleanliness.
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- There's no payoff.
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- Right, exactly.
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There's no anxiety relief by carrying out the compulsion.
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With OCD behaviors, like scrolling social media, the dopamine quickly wanes, and then you find that you're just sort of, and we've all been there,
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you're scrolling, and like, why am I doing this?
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This isn't that interesting.
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That isn't, this isn't that interesting.
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Now, the algorithms for social media are very clever and I don't want to demonize it.
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I, you know, provide a lot of a lot of my life is spent on, you know, on social media now.
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But the algorithms that they've incorporated function on the most powerful way to keep people doing a behavior,
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or an animal for that matter, is intermittent random reward, a random intermittent reward that you don't know when you're going to hit the jackpot.
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So you're scrolling, you're scrolling, and then you see something.
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Typically, it's very high what, you know, in nerd speak, we'd say signal to noise.
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So if you're reading some interesting things, this came out in the news, this came out, and then it's all of a sudden a riot.
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"or a person that is base jumping off a building, "or for people that are scrolling,
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"looking at bodies or something like that, live bodies.
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"Hopefully people aren't looking at dead bodies.
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"But look, if something's very tragic, "then that has this gravitational pull." And then what happens is you start getting
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the system working for that next dopamine hit that you don't know when it's going to come.
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It's just like gambling.
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So I look at social media as initially being very dopaminergic, driving rewards, surprise and excitement,
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but very quickly transitioning to something more like OCD and the kinds of behaviors where it looks,
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if we were to look at ourselves through the lens of an experiment like we would an animal experiment, we think that animal is sick.
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looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, you'd think that's really sad.
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That's us.
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What's happening people?
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If you enjoyed that, then press here for the full unedited episode.
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And don't forget to subscribe.
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Peace.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “This Will Make You Quit Social Media - Andrew Huberman”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dopamine, scrolling, serotonin, behavior, phones. This video has 61 sentences and 790 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:20. The speaker talks fast, about 182 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dopamine noun | /ˈdoʊ.pəˌmin/ | A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₂ that is a decarboxylated form of dopa, present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including adrenalin. |
| scroll noun | /skɹoʊl/ | A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll. |
| serotonin noun | /ˌsɛɹəˈtoʊnɪn/ | An indoleamine neurotransmitter, 5-hydroxytryptamine, that is involved in depression, appetite, etc., and is crucial in maintaining a sense of well-being… |
| compulsion noun | /kəmˈpʌlʃən/ | An irrational need or irresistible urge to perform some action, often despite negative consequences. |
| compulsive adjective | /kəmˈpʌlsɪv/ | Uncontrolled or reactive and irresistible. |
| dopaminergic adjective | /ˌdəʊ.pə.mɪˈnɜː.d͡ʒɪk/ | Containing, involving, or transmitting dopamine; involving dopamine receptor agonism. |
| intermittent adjective | /ˌɪntɚˈmɪtn̩t/ | Stopping and starting, occurring, or presenting at intervals; coming after a particular time span. |
| obsess verb | /əbˈsɛs/ | To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion. |
| obsessive adjective | /əbˈsɛs.ɪv/ | Prone to cause obsession. |
| novelty noun | /ˈnɑvəlti/ | The state of being new or novel; newness. |
| obsession noun | /əbˈsɛʃən/ | The quality of being obsessed; an unshakeable feeling that one topic or activity must be pursued above other interests. |
| algorithm noun | /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/ | A collection of ordered steps that solve a mathematical problem. A precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input… |
| cleanliness noun | /ˈklɛn.li.nᵻs/ | The property of being cleanly, or habitually clean; good hygiene. |
| confine verb | /ˈkɑnfaɪn/ | To restrict (someone or something) to a particular scope or area; to keep in or within certain bounds. |
| demonize verb | /ˈdiːmənaɪz/ | To turn into a demon. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| carry out verb | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | To hold while moving it out. |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come out in verb | to be afflicted by (a visible disruption of the body) | |
| jump off verb | To move from an elevated place by one jump. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've set · they've incorporated |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being obsessed · is spent |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 26 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, methamphetamine /ˌmɛθæmˈfɛtəˌmiːn/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: compulsion /kəmˈpʌlʃən/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: serotonin /ˌsɛɹəˈtoʊnɪn/, dopaminergic /ˌdəʊ.pə.mɪˈnɜː.d͡ʒɪk/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, inhibitor /ɪnˈhɪbɪtɚ/, methamphetamine /ˌmɛθæmˈfɛtəˌmiːn/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dopamine, scroll, serotonin.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.