Why You Keep Reaching — and Still Feel Empty

The Quiet Cost of Constantly Searching

We all reach for something.

Not always because we’re bored or distracted — but because, deep down, we’re aching. For comfort, for connection, for something we can’t always name.

It can take many forms:
The phone we check without thinking.
The snacks we turn to when we feel unsettled.
The message from someone who replies just enough to keep us hoping.
The swipe, the like, the scroll — the digital equivalent of “just one more…”

Each of these little moments offers us something: a hit of dopamine, a flicker of relief.
But as many of us have discovered — it never lasts for long.

This is what psychologists call variable reward.