stimulation simulation

This blog is a culmination of my experiences and observations on the topic of stimulation,

The things written in here are not scientific nor to be taken as facts, I am someone who loves psychology and wants to share my observations with the world. So with that being said I'll start off my blog, grab a cup of tea or coffee and relax as we explore the world of declining attention spans and increasing consumerism 

0. So what exactly is stimulation? 

Stimulation : an action or a thing that causes someone or something to become more active or enthusiastic -Cambridge University Press

Anything that creates a sense of excitement in our minds is stimulation. There are various types of things that can trigger a stimulation. Like for example physical pain is a type of stimulation, Winning a lottery or a job promotion is stimulation as well. And when a something stimulates you it creates a chemical in your brain called Dopamine.

When your brain produces dopamine it goes into a happy state, a state of fulfillment and joy.  This Dopamine is going to be a thing that can make or break you as a person living in today's society.

So with a little introduction part out of the way we can now delve into the observations I've made

1. Perpetual Stimulation

We live in a society that profits from our attention spans, whoever can have our attention can make millions of dollars. Big tech has perfected the exploitation of psychology to get us to click, watch, buy and consume. Here are some of the ways in which we keep consuming to get by in our lives.

1.1 Music :

Music has gone from being a leisure thing to being a necessity for a functional human being for many of us. I've met countless number of people who cannot sit and do anything unless the music is playing. 

This is music addiction, but not really. At this point you're not even aware of what you're listening, how many songs you've listened or what even the lyrics say. we don't appreciate music anymore but we use it to feel something. This is a dopamine addiction.

Music kicks our brains and makes it feel something so we don't feel bored when we start working, It keeps the excitement up and running so we can continue doing our task at hand. But why do we need a dose of excitement to work? didn't people use to work in solitude for long hours, often days without seeing any form of entertainment in the pre technology era.

1.2 Filling the Void : 

What do we do in our free time? most of us would associate this time is spent on playing games, Watching movies or TV shows, Mindlessly scrolling feeds on your phone, Listening to music, Eating tasty snacks even when you're not hungry and so on.

This goes even further when we start finding ourselves trying to do something all the time, I call this "anti-stillness".

This is when people are trying to scroll when eating, or when talking to someone . Or when there's anything that requires you to wait more than 5 seconds like loading in a video game or when there's un-skippable ads on youtube.

The list goes on but you get the idea, this obsession to keep your brain hooked on to something goes deeper than we realize.

1.3 The busy checklist :

There's a new trend I've observed in many, this is when people create checklists of tasks to keep themselves occupied. Now you may ask what's wrong with this, isn't it good to keep yourself busy?

The answer lies in what you do and how is it adding to your life. If you're perceived as "busy", people think highly of you and your mind thinks you must be doing something important which makes it even more justifiable. But keep in mind the busy checklist is often filled with tasks that require not much critical thinking or effort but it has enough to make it sound important. So you waste  your time doing things  that don't create any real tangible results that can add to your life.

If you ever find yourself doing busywork in your free time, remember that time is better spent doing nothing and idling which is also called as Resting

( we will get into why this is better in further chapters ).

We now know some of the ways in which we keep our brains stimulated. Now let's explore why this is so detrimental and keeps us from achieving our goals.

2. Untapped Potential And The Lost Dreams

2.1 Losing yourself

When was the last time you felt inspired to do something, to create or work on something other than your essentials like a job or school work?

Most people would probably think of a time when they were young, or if you're a creative person you might get the doses of inspiration time to time. But it's true that most of us don't get to work on something other than the essentials.

The big contributor for this is again stimulation, we keep ourselves engaged in some way or other and that leaves no room for us to think differently to create something new or to change how we are living.

The worst part is we lose our creative self, the person who has ambitions and big expectations from life.

This might seem a bit excessive but over time you lose that drive to go after your dreams.

here's a quote from J.K Rowling that will make this clear.

"If they had given me a direct line from Manchester and London,
and a mobile phone I would have never invented harry potter"- J.K Rowling

If she had a mobile phone or similar distractions during her train trip then Harry Potter would have not seen the light of the day. She got uninterrupted time to think and let her creative ideas go wild which led to the creation of Harry Potter series.

It was the delays in train trips where she came up with the idea of Harry Potter.

But today whenever we get some time to be with ourselves we pull out our phones and start consuming something, this keeps your brain hooked and thus leading you into the perpetual cycle of consumption and distraction. 

So where does all this constant distraction and consumption lead us to? In next sections we will discuss about it 

2.2 The Brainrot

What is brain rot? 

In Internet culture, brain rot (or brainrot) describes Internet content deemed to be of low quality or value, or the supposed negative psychological and cognitive effects caused by it.^[1] The term also more broadly refers to the deleterious effects associated with excessive use of digital media in general, especially short-form entertainment^[2] and doomscrolling,^[3] which may affect mental health.

Source : Wikipedia 

When our minds are filled with garbage "content" we start putting out garbage too.

Like the saying goes whatever goes comes out, you are what you consume, you create what you consume. A computer cannot output brilliance when the input code consists of errors, gibbrish and non sense.

A rapid surge of short form content emerged since the 2020 lockdowns and it never stopped.

As people ( mainly the younger generations like gen alpha ) kept consuming this content they developed their own slangs, a meme language.

I'll call it the brainrot language/Terms, It became so popular that the word "Brainrot" was the most used word by Gen Alpha in the past few years

Source : Oxford University Press

2.3 But it's fun right? what's wrong with this?

Yes you're right it is indeed fun, So fun that I like using those words myself whenever I get a chance to. But the real problem rises when this language becomes the primary language for kids. When the vocabulary is full of brainrot terms you're only going to create more brainrot as I said in the previous section. You are what you consume.

When all the time of a kid is spent consuming short form content with no real value, they are essentially robbed of the quiet time. The quiet time which brings out the curiosity of the kids and helps them shape their brains ( literally ) and personality. If the kids are too busy to wonder and ask questions then who will?

I'll leave it there so I won't sound like a old boomer complaining about "The kids these days". Because really it's not their fault.

3. Conclusion ( A personal attack on you ) :

We need to take control of our lives, every time we feel miserable we turn towards something that makes us happy in the present moment.

You subconsciously know what you do that feeds you dopamine. Is it scrolling? Gaming when you want to escape from life? do you smoke or drink when it feels the world is against you? Or perhaps you find yourself engaging in meaningless conversations so you can cling with someone to fill the voids? Cheap thrills wont get you out and you know it as much as anyone else.  

Your problems will solve themselves when you let yourself go daydreaming, Let your mind rest and it will pay tenfold.

Why daydreaming?

Stillness In motion

 A photo taken in a moving vehicle. 

It helps your mind explore the thoughts in your subconscious, Shower thoughts is one example of how we go daydreaming. Ever wondered why some of the greatest ideas come in the form of shower thoughts? It's because in this moment there is nothing around you that's begging for your attention, Your mind is resting and healing. The relaxing flow of water on your skin, the gentle sounds of water and the relaxing smell of your favorite shampoo or soap. This creates a perfect recipe for letting your mind drift and dream. And in these moments you find yourself the solution of every problem.

Quiet moments like these brings you mental clarity, So what I suggest is if  you're looking for a way out of the rut, Try to spend the free time doing nothing. When you stop constantly feeding your brain it can have the space it needs to breathe. 

Your mind needs this breathing space to come up with ideas and thoughts that help you in the long run, So let's try to be more mindful of how we spend our free time.

A good first step to be more mindful is to be intentional with how you spend your time.

Like you could look for what you want to watch on youtube or be taken by the youtube's algorithm which feeds you content that keeps you hooked. It's the same as curating and looking for healthy diet options instead of eating items from the store shelf which are presented to us by the TV or Internet commercials.

The Golden Hour,
A photo by me when I used to walk alone every evening.

He who finds comfort in solitude and in the company of his own thoughts, 
possesses the greatest strength - The Leek ( Me )

Thank you for reading all the way till the end, this was my second blog post and I'm happy how it turned out. I hope you found it helpful or amusing 

Comment down below if you can relate to any of the things I mentioned and see you in the next post : )