I was born in the 90s so most of my memories of my childhood are in the early 2000s. Back then, I used to read a lot and I mean A LOT. I also loved martial arts so I started attending kung fu classes and I was good at it.
image by Sincerely Media
Currently, I don’t remember the last time I have finished a book. I don’t do any organized sports and since I graduated, I only learn stuff that I need to improve my skills for the market. Instead, I’m either on instagram, twitter or watching some movie online. I have also caught myself buying stuff that I know I don’t need and I just don’t enjoy other activities as much as I used to. I also noticed that my attention span has become shorter than it used to. To understand why that happened, I knew that I needed to understand what motivates people to do anything and why I stopped being motivated to do activities that I used to enjoy.
What motivates people to do anything?
In short, the reward system of the brain produces dopamine which is responsible for making us feel better. This has been crucial for our survival as a race so for example, you get dopamine when you eat or have sex which are both essential for our survival. However, Dopamine has been exploited by humans to keep others hooked to their products and that brings us to the second question.
Why I stopped being motivated to do what I used to enjoy
The answer to that is instant gratification. As we learn more and more about dopamine and since we live in a capitalist society it was natural that it would be exploited by companies to make more profit. Applications are designed to keep you online for as much as possible to watch more ads and in turn they get more profit so in free applications you are the product. For example, social media apps use algorithms to show you what will give you more satisfaction instead of what you conciously seek to see.
Nowadays none of the major social media applications show you only what you subscribe to, you are instead constantly bombarded with new content that keeps you hooked for hours and hours through the “Explore” sections.
Marketing strategies have also shifted from “This product is good for you and will help you to do this or that” to “You need this product to be happy” This is also instant gratification since in the first narrative you might or might not need to do what the product is designed for but in the second narrative you always need to be happy so why wouldn’t you buy it? An obvious example of that is the apple iphone ads. the first iphone commercial focused on how you can do more with it. But currently, getting the latest iphone is a social status regardless of it being able to do more
There are so many more examples I will probably cover some later in more detail but the point is, our brain is manipulated to keep us hooked or buy other stuff and the problem with that is how easier it is to get dopamine by using social media, watching digital ccontent or buying something new compared to doing a sport, reading or focusing on a hobby.
We are not in control of what we do
We no longer do what we want to do or what we need to do to become better. Instead of spending hours reading a book, we can easily get more dopamine by watching a movie on netflix or scrolling through instagram. We no longer need effort to get dopamine which makes our brain addicted to stuff that give us instant gratification and renders other activities boring since they don’t give us as much dopamine and certainly not as easy. We keep getting distracted when we work or when we read and we are never really living the moment. We no longer do an activity because we like it but often we do it so we can post about it later to get dopamine from others reaction to it. We no longer buy what we need but we buy what would give us more satisfaction when we buy it. We don’t even eat what we need but we eat stuff that we know are harmful but they give us more dopamine. Adding to that our use of drugs and alcohol which are also quick sources of dopamine.
We must always keep in mind that our brains do not know what is harmful for us. They crave stuff based on how they produce dopamine regardless of how useful they are. Next time you want to do something be mindful about it: do you really need to do it or is it just for the dopamine? Try doing more useful activities that are rewarding on the long run rather than being stimulated all the time by constant doses of dopamine. This is how we can regain control over our lives and do what truly matters.
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