Out Of Virtual Reality, Into The Real World

Our world is getting more and more virtual by the minute. We are spending more and more time on things that are, simply put, not real. We can base our identity on things that are literally not real. With the internet we can create a new persona. A new life that we can live vicariously through our interactions with other peoples personas. Stroking our egos so we don't have to face the fact that our real life is in fact a pathetic existence. Compared to our virtual ones anyway. I know as a kid myself, growing up in the early 2000’s. I spent a lot of time on video games. On fantasy worlds that made me feel better about myself. I knew I could never actually be the person I was being on the video game. But damn, that world was so much better than my real one. So I spent more and more time immersed in a world that didn't exist. Just to escape the one I was currently living in. Not everyone did this. But I’m starting to see a trend with younger men today. More and more are turning to that. Video gaming has become a massive business, and quite frankly, a sport. I hear guys talk about the stuff streamers did in games like they are real things. It's like talking about professional sports. I do it too. Because I actually really like video gaming. The problem however, lies in just how much time and energy is spent on things that are not real. It should not eclipse your real life.

    There is a dichotomy to this. The internet is really an amazing tool. People have made amazing connections through social media. People have made differences in the world with powerful messages. Created large and profitable businesses I myself am sitting here trying to use this tool for a good purpose. It isn’t all bad. I know it isn’t. You can have too much of a good thing however. Social media is by far one of the most entertaining things to happen to us. The algorithms that dictate what content you see are brilliant. Facebook or Instagram will continually spit out things that are hand picked to be interesting to you based on your viewing preferences. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve lost to that entertainment behemoth. I’m quite entertained during that time. But I haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile. Then I feel useless for not getting anything done. It’s fine to be entertained. It’s not fine to be useless. Time is the most important resource we have. I can’t afford to waste it. Neither can you. 

    There is a body of research and information out there right now linking depression and suicide to digital media usage. When you dive into it, it is actually quite staggering. A study for depression and suicide between 2008 and 2017 from the American Psychology Association (Age, Period, and Cohort Trends in Mood Disorder Indicators and Suicide-Related Outcomes in a Nationally Representative Dataset,)  breaks down these numbers. This study is broken down by age, socioeconomic status, gender, and race. In a nutshell, the largest increase in depression is among the 18-25 age group for men and women. From 2008 to 2017 there has been an increase of serious psychological distress in the age group 18-25 of 71%. The data shows that as people get older the incident rate of distress drops. An increase of just 14% was shown in the age group of 50-56, same with 65 plus. Suicide and suicide ideation increased in similar ways. The completed suicide rate of 18-19 year olds rose from 9.33 per one hundred thousand to 14.53 per one hundred thousand between 2008 and 2017. However, the completed suicide rate among older adults has always been higher, it hasn’t increased nearly as much. Among 30-34 year olds: 13.39 to 17.70, a 33 percent differential. It is not nearly as pronounced in older generations. Interestingly enough, there were two major factors that the researchers identified as contributors to the increase in psychological distress, suicide ideation, and suicide outcomes. Use of technology for communication, mainly social media and digital content, and socioeconomic status. They saw a marked jump in these numbers right around 2014 when smart phone use was getting to be commonplace among adults at the time. This correlates directly with another set of data found among generations. Millennials were the generation that had the biggest increase in depression and suicide. Next to baby boomers, who can be said to be higher on the socioeconomic ladder due their accumulation of resources over time. Researchers say this increase among millennials is due to a lack of face to face interactions socially and a lack of sleep due to problematic screen time use screwing up circadian rhythms. Not to mention the psychological detriment that social media can have in just the way it is used to compare ourselves endlessly and waste time. 

    How can we seemingly have it all and still be so depressed about it? I thought having smart phones and all these things would make our lives better. Our lives can be essentially struggle free if we wish it because of the amount of convenience and coddling our culture has. But as humans, the more we experience something the more we get used to it. We can become acclimated to almost anything. Becoming used to having our life being easy doesn't prepare us for struggle. I wonder if this is why we are seeing and increase in depression and suicide. Mentally we are not prepared for struggle and hardship, so when it does finally happen, even if it's minuscule. Our lives tailspin because we are not acclimated. We could lean on the explanation of the Blue Dot Effect to maybe help us understand. In his book, “Everything is Fucked”, Mark Manson talks about a concept called the Blue Dot Effect. Researchers showed a test group a series of blue and purple dots. They were asked to pick out the blue dots. Over the course of the test they gradually declined the amount of blue dots. However, the participants were still naming as many if not more blue dots despite there being less of them. This suggests that the human brain makes most of its decision making based on past experiences. Modern society has become so good and has solved so many problems. Objectively this is the greatest time in human history in regards to quality of life. Yet we are depressed and getting more depressed. The more problems we solve, the more things we start to see as problematic. If we start searching for problems constantly we will find them, couple that with our lack of inoculation against real struggle and you start getting small problems that turn into seemingly insurmountable problems. The bar for what is actually a problem is moving lower and lower as our lives get easier and easier.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/62962-blue-or-purple-dots-illusion.html

    There are some young guys out there who were basically born with an iphone in their hand. They are really adept at using technology. They can work computers and consoles like wizards. But they can’t change a tire on the side of the road when they need to. Trading basic life competency skills for virtual ones, in my opinion, is not a good thing. Sure, having those tech skills is a really useful thing in a tech world. But there are still entire portions of life that exist outside of that. One of the main tenets of being masculine is competency. Self confidence lies in competency. The more competent you are the better off you will be. It is a disturbing trend that more young men are not pursuing basic life competency skills. No one teaches them these things either. What a great feeling it is to be capable of taking care of yourself. Not having to rely on other people for basic tasks. This doesn't mean you have to be a carpenter or a mechanic. You just need to know some basic skills to accomplish the small tasks that anyone can accomplish with a little bit of knowledge and skill. Like changing your oil. The goal is to be always progressing.

My iphone has this handy little feature that tells me what my usage is on a weekly basis. Every week it will tell me how much time I spend on my phone on average. It will even break down the time spent on individual apps. I think one of the best ways to stop wasting time is to start tracking it. Find out where you spend the most time. Identify where it is being wasted and where it is being used well. Minimize the waste, and maximize the productive time. My phone usage last week was around 5 hours a day. 5 HOURS A DAY. I spent about half of that reading e books in the kindle app. The other half is split between Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Kijiji (buy and sell app for Canada). Around 2.5 hours of my day is wasted. Imagine if I spent that time on things that would improve myself? 2.5 hours and day would compound into 12.5 hours a week. 12.5 hours a week can accomplish a lot. Track your time. It will open your eyes.

I know personally, making the transition away from constant entertainment has been hard. I’m so ridiculously used to the easy entertainment that technology like my phone and video games gives me that anything else seems like a lot of work; In comparison to working out, reading, actually working on my side hustle. I feel like if I’m not immediately enjoying myself then I’m somehow missing out. That I somehow deserve to waste time. Frankly, if I'm being honest with myself, it's pathetic. It’s one thing to have a hobby and to unwind and to switch your brain off for some rest once in a while. But consistently wasting hours upon hours on games or social media just because I am so lazy that I don't want to do something else that is marginally harder, is pathetic. I could read instead. I could write instead. I could go for a walk. I could clean my office. I could work on my website. There’s literally no excuse. I mean there might be a caveat to this. If your job is doing those things and it allows you to build a life that you really want then disregard what I’m saying. However. For most young men, social media and video games are a crutch. 

    The easy access to entertainment builds a habit of instant gratification. It’s an easy escape. It doesn't force us to deal with our problems. Maybe that sounds ridiculous to you. It did to me. How could something so innocent be so bad? Building a habit of instant gratification will lead us to rely on those behaviors. Which means we will make decisions based on what makes us feel good now versus what will be good for us in the future. A lot of those feel good now decisions are at the expense of our future. That 2 hours you just spent watching tik toks, is now 2 hours taken away from your life. Where you could have invested that time into studying something and learning a new skill, developing better relationships with your family or girlfriend. Getting better at your job so you can get a raise. That two hours seems insignificant. It's the habit of doing that every single day that leads to problems. Then what's next? Once that pathway of taking the easier way is built, you will find it harder and harder to make prudent decisions that will benefit you in the long term. Distracting ourselves from meaningful pursuits is what lands us with depression. It’s what makes us look back and realize that we wasted significant portions of our lives. Doing something meaningful isn't always fun, or even that fulfilling in the moment. We don;t get to reap those rewards until later. Hitting the gym hard and eating right is a pain in the ass. But you will look back to your starting point a year from now and see the progress that you have made. Maybe the friendships you made in the gym. You’ll look back and think to yourself: “damn, I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish”. That will be infinitely more satisfying than knowing those few extra hours were wasted on cool cat videos. It will definitely be less painful than knowing you could have been more later when you look back and no longer have the option.

    Becoming a more capable and competent man requires sacrifice. But it’s hard to find the time in the day to do all the things you know you should do. WRONG. Simply put that's just wrong. Clear out all the bullshit from your schedule and you will find time. I was amazed how much time I had in the day once I started cutting down on social media and useless activities. If something doesn't serve your long term goals. Axe it. Afraid of doing that? Guess what, if you feel shitty about yourself now, it's because what you are doing with your life now isn't what you know you should be doing. Be honest with yourself. Gaming, hanging out with friends, having a good time, drinking, fucking, whatever. None of that has brought you real fulfillment. To bring back meaning to your life you need to start doing meaningful things with your time. Not saying that you shouldn't enjoy yourself ever. But I know personally, I need a shift towards doing more work and less enjoying myself. I really believe that is how it should be. I had to get intentional with where I spent my time. If the scale is tipped too far over to pleasure and having fun then it doesn't really have any meaning for me. It’s the hard work that makes it worth it. I can appreciate it more. And not feel bad about it afterwards when I relax and enjoy myself.

     We really don't need to be inundated constantly by social media or entertained endlessly by video games and Netflix. Really pay attention to what you give your attention to. It is a really finite resource. I believe there is a link between our modern day escapism and depression. We haven’t seen the likes of it before in human history. Can you imagine constantly comparing yourself to the success and highlight reel of others? While simultaneously doing nothing with yourself for hours on end? At the end of a session you could possibly think to yourself: Why isn’t my life like that? I don't think that it is a bad thing to look up and out, to where you want to go in the future. In fact you got to have something to aim towards. However, it is not beneficial to be constantly looking up and out. You need to look down and in. Pay attention to your daily habits and change them to support the broader goal. Look at your ACTIONS. I feel social media leads me to a lot of inaction. I'll spend an hour of Facebook looking at cool and interesting shit. While I’m doing that I know in the back of my head that I’m wasting time. That this time could be spent moving towards a future that I want. I see those influencers and their nice cars, their sweet lifestyles. I get envious of their financial independence and freedom. I could care less about all the material stuff. Then I start feeling bad about myself. Because I know I’m not living in integrity with myself. I’m not doing the WORK. I’m focused on others and their accomplishments when I should be focused on myself. I think that may be the crux of the problem. It takes the focus away from ourselves and  uses up our time. It robs us of our capacity to really focus on things that do matter. The constant switching and scrolling from content to content builds a habit of inattention for me. I noticed a real brain fog after a long social media session. My brain can’t concentrate on one thing exclusively for a while afterwards. It also places us mentally, in a situation where we are constantly thinking less of ourselves while distracting us from that reality. It can really be paralyzing, especially for someone who is already an anxious type of person. 

    How do we combat this? I’m speaking to myself here because I struggle with this daily. I really don't think that this is a complex problem to solve. It will be hard because the same reward system that gets you addicted to drugs is the one giving you those little hitters of dopamine every time you open and scroll through The Gram. Start monitoring your usage and replacing the time you use on virtual reality and put it into your real life. Have a hard cutoff limit. I had to completely delete these apps off my phone. I have such poor self control over it that I had to limit my capability to access these things. I can’t tell you how many times that I've sat down to write or do something that is actually important, and then just fire up whatever game I like on my computer and waste a couple of hours. It wasn't obvious to me before, but after having done things like that I would feel terrible. I would wake up the next day in a complete haze of melancholy. I’d be in a dark place mentally. This is because I knew I wasn't doing the things I should be doing on a subconscious level. Implement systems like an app that limits your access to these things in the beginning if you have poor self control. I set a cutoff time for myself now. I have to work and be productive until a certain time. Then I can relax and use my time wherever I want. I will keep moving the bar on that time frame so my “off” time for the day will be gradually less and less until it is at a reasonable amount.

    Realistically, we only have so much time. How we use it is important. Exercising moderation with our social media usage is important. We have right around four thousand weeks to live as an average person. That's pushing eighty years  old. Only so much time to live well. I really don't think the mindless entertainment that is offered to us should be the majority use of that time. What would you rather look back on? Would you like to know that you had a challenging but rewarding life? Or, would you see yourself as someone who avoided those challenges, and along with them the opportunities presented? Here’s how I want to live my life, what I’m working towards: I want a fire lit under me. I want to be the guy that people look at and think “That guy is kinda crazy doing what he does”. Crazy in a sense of being able to work diligently and passionately on my goals. I want that discipline, I want that grit, I want to be able to overcome my own inertia. I want to earn the good things in my life. I want to be set apart from the rest. Anything less would be selling myself short. The thing standing in the way of all that, even now is the time I waste on virtual reality. This article is a kick in my own ass. This is because this particular topic is a pain point for me. I really struggle with making that switch over. I am NOT that guy I described and I know I will never get there unless I make the switch. Break that habit of easy instant gratification. I owe it to myself to kill that inner voice that says “It’s okay you can do it later”. If I don’t, I will not be living in integrity with what I actually want.