Instant gratification is the theme of the day and boy do our brains love it. We are hard wired for immediate gratification much like Pavlov’s dog: the bell rings and the salivation begins. If we had only known the triggering effect of these handheld computers 20 years ago would we have progressed in the same fashion? Technology advances societies yet as we know all drugs come with side effects. Yup, that’s right your cell phone is like a drug. Allow me to expand. Let’s talk about drugs for a moment.
Drug use can start as a way to escape, but it can quickly make your life worse. Drugs excite the parts of the brain that make one feel good. This is known as “the high.” But after one takes a drug for a while, the feel-good parts of one’s brain get used to it. This is known as drug tolerance. Then one needs to take more of the drug to get the same good feeling.
This is known as compulsion. Soon, your brain and body must have the drug just to feel normal. This is known as addiction. You feel sick, awful, anxious, and irritable without the drug. This is known as withdrawal. You no longer have the good feelings that you had when you first used the drug. In most cases, the drug use continues to avoid feeling bad as the initial feeling of “high” is no longer taking place. Digital addiction is no different.
Digital device and media designers are capitalizing on age old wiring in the brain that we once used for survival. The dopamine system, the achievement and motivation system, likely evolved at a time when we needed to be nomadic searching for food to survive. The pleasurable feeling produced by the consumption of resources aiding the brain in remembering the location of the resource. Nowadays, digital devices provide resources that are in high demand. Communication, exercise, productivity, meditation, breath work guidance, social media and many other attention grabbing options are available at the touch of a finger.
Instantly our desires are gratified. To a human in the 1900’s, a cell phone would be much like finding a genie in a lamp granting magical wishes to your door from an amazon of products. Social media designers use algorithmic approaches that rival the cash collecting Vegas slot machines paying out random prizes. It is in this randomness that the capitalization occurs. Humans normalize everything through chemical reactions in the brain, hence the example of drug tolerance. By allowing one to obtain their desires randomly, the algorithm sets the stage for the process of digital addiction to take hold. Before one knows it hours of precious time go by relatively unnoticed with little accomplished. Sound familiar?
Enter procrastination. As we all know, procrastination is the act of putting off something until a later time. We procrastinate when we know what to do. This can lead to feelings of anxiety and guilt. It can also leave us feeling unproductive, lazy, and powerless. Procrastination’s most powerful ally is instant gratification.
Cue the cell phone. Here’s the problem. Now you have a system which is being tricked into thinking it is achieving something by scrolling while disempowering potentials all over the country.
Take for instance the social platform Tik Tok. Short bits of information spoon fed by a Chinese algorithm to US citizens which is quite different from the domestic algorithm. In the U.S., children experience the same version of TikTok as adults, while children in China see a modified version of Douyin that includes more educational content. Why the difference?
Turns out procrastination comes at a large cost to life as we know it. Scientists have recently discovered that the hub for will power is housed in a region of the human brain called anterior mid cingulate cortex. More precisely, scientists are correlating this area with perhaps being responsible for our will to live. I would like for you to consider the brain like a muscle.
The activities you practice in life are represented in the brain in the form of networks. Let’s consider these networks as mental muscles that can be exercised to grow larger and stronger. Wouldn’t it make sense to work out the center of will power? On the surface that would make discipline a whole lot easier to have as a characteristic. Who wouldn’t want to possess more will power and discipline?
Our existence is primarily validated in modern society by achievement. When we achieve our goals we are rewarded internally with dopamine and externally with recognition, validation, or tangible rewards, reinforcing our sense of accomplishment and motivating us to continue striving for success. Take an athlete for instance. So much discipline to go out every day and work towards a goal in the long term future. Practices, work outs, cardio, recovery, proper nutrition, consistent hydration and many other actions on the path to turning pro.
One of the most important bits of advice I offer is learning how to say no to opportunities that move the athlete off the path to greatness. Turns out there is a lot of power in the word no, the power to grow your center of will power.
Each time you say no to something you desire that provides immediate gratification, you can strengthen the mental muscle of will power. Can you see how empowering this can be towards long term achievement of goals and dreams? How much better would you feel about yourself if you possessed the power to determine your fate?
Embrace the suck then as David Goggins would say because it is making you stronger in mind and possibly body if you pursue a healthier version of you. In a world looking for purpose, what better purpose could one have than to be the healthiest possible version of oneself?