why do we all need constant stimulation all day forever we scroll through Twitter while we watch TV we listen to podcasts while we work on our computers there are even tick tocks that are split screen videos so you can watch a tick tock while you watch a tick tock it's crazy I wish I could say I was above this stuff but definitely not I engage as much as anyone probably more so when I say we I do mean we so how did we get here why can't we experience a moment of silence without being overwhelmed
by anxiety why do we always need to be watching or listening to something what happened the whole dopamine hit thing is the quickest explanation and one that you may be thinking of right now before I started making this video I assumed it to be true but turns out while still relevant the idea of a quick dopamine fix is kind of a myth and we'll get into that in a whole lot more see the truth has to do with a misunderstanding about dopamine decreasing attention spans and a huge failed promise if things are difficult now where
are we going with all this can new forms of stimulation just keep appearing forever to compete for our attention there are a lot of pieces to put together but that's exactly what we're going to do common knowledge dictates that we want constant stimulation because we're seeking quick hits of dopamine we're all addicted to this so-called pleasure chemical and every time we find a funny video or an arousing image we get our fix then we go back for more and more and more and more until Infinity this idea ties dopamine and self-improvement up in a nice
little clickable package influencers and whoever can tell you that the key to improving happiness is by resetting your dopamine that's simple that's easy but it's not totally true is more complicated dopamine is not released as a pleasure chemical dopamine is fired off before the pleasure is experienced as an anticipation chemical the reward is not really relevant to dopamine release evolutionarily this is intended to help with a try again mentality if you're hunting and you miss your Quarry dopamine ensures that the attempt itself encourages you to try again scientifically near misses actually produce even more dopamine
than getting your desired result say you got five dollars every time you pressed a button anticipation of each five dollar reward would release dopamine but then imagine if the button started giving you a hundred dollars for each press you'd get even more dopamine for a little while before eventually declining back down to the five dollar dopamine level despite still getting a hundred dollars on each press at that point if the button switched back to five dollar bills your dopamine levels would decline even further to a place below that original five dollar level if dopamine was
a pleasure chemical you would get x amount of dopamine for the five dollars then more for the hundred dollars then right back down to X for the five dollars but that's not what happens the five dollar button loses its ability to create dopamine as it becomes your new Baseline this shows that dopamine is not tied to the intrinsic value of the reward but the difference between your reward and your default state five dollars is only nice basically until you have five dollars so think about taking a walk a walk provides a reward compared to our
Baseline of staying inside it used to anyways just walking outside in nature alone in silence was great for a while then we were offered a podcast we could listen to while we took our walk it's even better so we did that until that got boring but then we could scroll through Tick Tock while we listen to a podcast while we take a walk that's amazing but now taking a walk maybe our five dollar button is shockingly boring unfortunately this has no end the human brain is not wired to find satisfaction because of our dopamine systems
as we consume more we actually desire more it's perhaps one of our most fatal flaws So eventually we have to be constantly stimulated because we've had our five dollars and then our hundred dollars and then our thousand dollars and now that five dollars whether it's taking a walk sitting in a park cooking breakfast or whatever it's just not enough so how do we fix it well that's complicated because to fix the problem we need a full picture of the diagnosis and dopamine alone is helpful but does not give us this full picture foreign [Music] s
are getting demonstrably shorter anecdotally I think we could all probably agree with this but there have been numerous studies that proved this phenomenon more scientifically indeed our attention spans have gotten shorter as the amount of information in the world has grown we only have so much real estate available in our minds now there are endless Acres of information to consume the problem is that instead of just ignoring some stuff we are convinced by ourselves our peers our culture at large to just fit everything into our brains we are told by any number of these sources
that we have to care about every single news item and current event this is our modern obligation this is fomo the fear of missing out if we aren't up to date on everything we are cruel or soulless or ignorant or all of the above but at the same time we still have our actual personal interests there's endless information at our fingertips about things we genuinely do love and why bother living if we can't pursue the things we enjoy so we slowly decided to just make room for everything in this amount of time the real estate
of our mind cannot and has not grown instead it's just been divided into smaller and smaller pieces with every passing day when we pair this concept with the idea that the more we consume the hungrier we get it becomes really easy to understand why we all need constant stimulation but still there remains one last piece of the puzzle [Music] it was thought that technology would lighten our Collective load robot systems computers they're going to take some of the baggage off of our hands but in reality these things have taken our baggage only to replace it
with well other baggage technology has relieved us from a physical workload but replaced it with a spiritual exhaustion it has taken physical distance and replaced that with a new kind of division armed with all of the information in the universe we were supposed to be absolved of ignorance instead there is ignorance like never before we are forced to Grapple with the effects of a failed promise brought on To Us by a technocratic government a capitalist system and indeed our own selves I can't sit here on YouTube and seriously advocate for the downfall of modern technology
but I just wonder when we get to a point where technology does more harm than good how will we know I don't have an answer to that question societal changes can happen slowly over time in a large scale way that's how we got here we can recognize issues vote based on these issues and solve our problems together but today as an individual right now you cannot change the system you are facing but you do have power you have agency because you can change how you function within that system [Music] if you're looking for a solid
well-defined way to overcome these obstacles that I've spoken about I'm sorry this video cannot provide that in fact I don't think any video can provide that we're also different if so many different brain chemistries lived experiences cultural influences and circumstances that there's no blanket remedy for basically any problem this one very much included meditation works for a lot of people but maybe not everyone abstaining from Digital Life the same could be good but could be entirely unrealistic for any given person the list of would-be Remedies just goes on like that so all I can do
is provide my perspective and maybe it will offer some value but I do this bearing in mind that I have not yet won this battle fleeting moments of pleasure aren't real happiness so it could be helpful to examine and maybe redefine what makes us profoundly and permanently happy person could seek those things and perhaps find joy in just the Journey of discovering or accomplishing them assuming media is super easy and change is really difficult changing this stuff specifically in this world is monumentally difficult again I'm not even close to having done it I ultimately think
that during this type of change every day will be a struggle and you will fail but every single day you can get up and try again yeah
