Why You Keep Repeating the Same Patterns - Dr K HealthyGamer (4K)

You spend a lot of time thinking about our interaction with screens.

Mm-hmm.

How would you describe what technology is doing to our brains?

Uh, I think the short answer is, not good. So I, I think technology has a lot of benefits. So it has a lot of benefits for our lives, but specifically, what is... what is it doing to our brains I think is, generally speaking, not very good. Um, so just as one example, if you look at basically social media, video games, pornography, most of the technology that we use that is not directly work-related is going to have suppressive effects on our, like, negative emotional circuitry. So any time you're feeling bad, if you browse social media or you play a video game, like, it's gonna shut off your negative emotions, which can feel good in the short term, but in the long term, it's really not good.

Right. So it is a... anesthetic-

Yeah.

... that people use to salve bad emo-... I've, uh, I've seen a number of girl friends who, if there is a... i- if they're feeling a little bit uncomfortable, will get on their phone and, like, self-soothe by scrolling.

Yeah. I mean, I think everyone does that.

Yes.

So, so I, I think... Uh, if you, if you really pay attention, what I've noticed is, you know, watch yourself in a transition. So any time there's a transition, any time you're getting into the elevator, you're waiting in line somewhere, you're even getting up from, like, your, your work desk to walk somewhere else, people will just automatically pull out their phones.

Mm.

So we're, we're so... We've, we've become so hooked to these things, and I think, um, app designers, phone designers have also tried to capitalize on that impulsivity. So if you think about it, like, even things like face ID, like, that shrinks the time between an impulse up here and engagement in your phone.

What does chronic, long-term hiding from feeling feelings result in?

I think it prom-... Uh, pro-... Uh, I'd say the biggest problem that it creates is, like, being stagnant in life. So if we understand, like, let's think about this, right? So e- everyone thinks we have good emotions and bad emotions. So we have these emotions that are good, like excitement, joy, curiosity, love, and then we have bad emotions, like anger, sadness, shame, fear, and we don't want the bad emotions. We want the good emotions. But if you stop and think about it for a second, every human being on the planet has evolved to experience bad emotions. It's a feature. It's not a bug. And then the question is, why? And if we look at our negative emotional circuitry, it is very close, like, like, anatomically, our limbic system is very close to our hippocampus, which is where learning and memory take place. So they're, like, sitting right next to each other, a lot of strong connections. So negative emotions are powerful sources of information and motivation. So if you kind of think about anxiety, we all wanna conquer anxiety, but if we stop and really think about it, anxiety helps us realize, like, what to avoid, um, you know. It, it drives us in a particular direction. If we look at emotions like shame, shame actually is, is supposed to be a powerful motivator to drive corrective action. So if I feel ashamed for failing a test, I wanna study really hard so I never feel that shame again. And so paradoxically, what happens when we shut off our negative emotions is we lose the motivation to actually fix our problems. And this is why I think we see a generation of people who are, like, stuck.