John, a pretty darn good post overall, and your story about the Atari hit very close to home. Something similar happened to me when I first encountered Mario at a friends house in 2d grade. We took turns playing all night and never got a bit of sleep. My dad picked me up and found out, he forced me to stay awake until it was my proper bed time, as punishment. He was trying to make the point that in real life, actions like that can be disastrous. On my own, Robert E. Lee Civil War General on PC in 1995 was one I would play for hours on campaign mode, but always tried to avoid stupid all nighters. My son had a shockingly similar experience, when his cousin left a tablet at Grandma's house while we were all visiting. The boy took the tablet, and played Minecraft all night.
Two additional observations for you:
First, a single porn video has an outsized effect on the mind, compared to say, a food addiction. Pornography, and the self abuse that goes with it, is tied not just to dopamine, but to a host of other chemical, biological, and mental processes. It not only shapes how we view the other sex and sexual relations, but it also retains addictive post effects. That is, there is copious anecdotal evidence (and even in a few studies I have seen) that show the human mind tends to store images related to pornography for very long periods. There are many accounts online (forums, Q&A's, etc.) that relate people recalling with great clarity, the source of the first "hit" of pornographic dopamine they ever experience, often in minute detail. I was 12 when I saw pornography for the first time, when my idiot older brother left a tape he swiped from a friend's house in our VCR (Yes, I'm old). My dad found out when the tape got eaten by the player, and he chucked it in the garbage. There are times when the scenes from that video flash, unbidden, into my mind even after almost 30 years.
Second, digital addiction is indeed very akin to heroin addiction, with some frightening parallels. A child allowed too much screen time and then denied it will frequently demonstrate classic addict behaviors: wheedling, bargaining, threatening, stealing, and even vindictive destructive behaviors to "get back" at the person keeping them from their digital drug. Additionally, parents who allow their their kids so much unfettered screen time fail to realize that it is shaping their young minds, much like exposure to pornography. How much worse when the whole point of social media is to condition, sway, and desensitize, acting more as a social contagion vector.
There was a brilliant piece years ago about how massively multiplayer onling games (MMOs) are engineered to function like Skinner boxes It's as though the designers of these "games" have figured out a way to hack the human brain using operant conditioning. It should come as no surprise that the larger world of social media has the same broad effect.
Fantastic essay. I plan on sharing it far and wide. I especially liked your illustration about the kinds of things that one would put into a “jar of awesome” and how cheap thrills rob us of the time and will to pursue the meaningful things that bring true satisfaction. When I was in my 20s I got hooked on weed. I would get high in order to channel my creativity and then sit stoned on the couch, creating nothing. I didn’t begin to achieve any meaningful goals until after I quit for good when I turned 30.
John, a pretty darn good post overall, and your story about the Atari hit very close to home. Something similar happened to me when I first encountered Mario at a friends house in 2d grade. We took turns playing all night and never got a bit of sleep. My dad picked me up and found out, he forced me to stay awake until it was my proper bed time, as punishment. He was trying to make the point that in real life, actions like that can be disastrous. On my own, Robert E. Lee Civil War General on PC in 1995 was one I would play for hours on campaign mode, but always tried to avoid stupid all nighters. My son had a shockingly similar experience, when his cousin left a tablet at Grandma's house while we were all visiting. The boy took the tablet, and played Minecraft all night.
Two additional observations for you:
First, a single porn video has an outsized effect on the mind, compared to say, a food addiction. Pornography, and the self abuse that goes with it, is tied not just to dopamine, but to a host of other chemical, biological, and mental processes. It not only shapes how we view the other sex and sexual relations, but it also retains addictive post effects. That is, there is copious anecdotal evidence (and even in a few studies I have seen) that show the human mind tends to store images related to pornography for very long periods. There are many accounts online (forums, Q&A's, etc.) that relate people recalling with great clarity, the source of the first "hit" of pornographic dopamine they ever experience, often in minute detail. I was 12 when I saw pornography for the first time, when my idiot older brother left a tape he swiped from a friend's house in our VCR (Yes, I'm old). My dad found out when the tape got eaten by the player, and he chucked it in the garbage. There are times when the scenes from that video flash, unbidden, into my mind even after almost 30 years.
Second, digital addiction is indeed very akin to heroin addiction, with some frightening parallels. A child allowed too much screen time and then denied it will frequently demonstrate classic addict behaviors: wheedling, bargaining, threatening, stealing, and even vindictive destructive behaviors to "get back" at the person keeping them from their digital drug. Additionally, parents who allow their their kids so much unfettered screen time fail to realize that it is shaping their young minds, much like exposure to pornography. How much worse when the whole point of social media is to condition, sway, and desensitize, acting more as a social contagion vector.
There was a brilliant piece years ago about how massively multiplayer onling games (MMOs) are engineered to function like Skinner boxes It's as though the designers of these "games" have figured out a way to hack the human brain using operant conditioning. It should come as no surprise that the larger world of social media has the same broad effect.
Fantastic essay. I plan on sharing it far and wide. I especially liked your illustration about the kinds of things that one would put into a “jar of awesome” and how cheap thrills rob us of the time and will to pursue the meaningful things that bring true satisfaction. When I was in my 20s I got hooked on weed. I would get high in order to channel my creativity and then sit stoned on the couch, creating nothing. I didn’t begin to achieve any meaningful goals until after I quit for good when I turned 30.