Our poll, which ran from early June to late August, asked over 7,000 millennials the following question: “Do you get anxiety when you do not have your phone with you?”
As you can see from the graph above, 69 percent of millennials reported that they suffered from anxiety when they were separated from their mobile devices. Meanwhile, 31 percent of the respondents stated that they have never felt such a side-effect.
We wanted to get millennials perspective on this issue because we are not only the most tech-savvy demographic, but also the first generation to be fully immersed in the smart-phone culture from an early age.
As it turns out, virtually seven out of every ten millennials report anxiety due to being away from their phones for too long… these millennial respondents are feeling something that makes them uncomfortable when they are not checking their phones. As a millennial, I can personally attest to this uneasy feeling that is associated with being detached from my smartphone. The longest I can go without checking my iPhone is usually one Game of Thrones episode. Ever try refraining from checking your cell phone after you hear it vibrate or ring for a text message? It is not only tortuous, but nearly impossible.
We broke down the results of this poll according to gender and found that females are more likely to suffer from phone-separation anxiety than males. When it came to male millennial respondents, 63 percent reported having anxiety, while 37 percent claimed that they do not get anxious after not checking their phones. In comparison, 76 percent of female respondents stated that they did get anxiety after being apart from their mobile devices, while 24 percent did not.
Think about how triggerable these amygdalae are. Think about how easy these people have it that their amygdalae are firing off in response to this minor stress.
Now imagine these people experiencing a real hardship for a year. That hardship would redefine their amygdala’s triggerable thresholds. Suddenly their phone would be the least of their worries.
This is why I think a lot of depression is actually due to too much ease and pleasure. We define our primary world as the inverse of the extremes we experience. If you experience brief bursts of incredible pleasure, then the majority of your life will be dispiriting by comparison. If you experience brief periods of stress and horror, then the remainder of your life will be relaxing and pleasurable by comparison.
Embrace the amygdala burn, because it is not only strengthening your brain and making you more tolerant of stress in the future, it is redefining your regular world upward, making the rest of your world seem more pleasurable than it would have seemed otherwise.
Tell everyone about r/K Theory, because it is amygdala-triggering to leftists
Do you think video games create a similar efffect in people? I think they provide these bursts of pleasure, same as with phones, and this changes people’s brains. The danger of society-wide video game addiction is something never talked about (not to mention porn, which is sort of a video game when you think about it.)
I agree, though it might depend on the game. Then again, most games are probably designed to elicit dopamine, as a way of addicting people to them.
For me, video games were a way of escaping a painful reality. Their addictive quality wasnt in the pleasure of the game (I never enjoyed them), but in avoiding what I saw as a no-win situation.
This blog was one of the major sources for helping me turn that around btw.
I am delighted to hear it.
Things can get dark, but they can lighten just as fast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilIkoSWeOSk
Skeptical man confuses biology and psychology in anti-r/K selection theory rant.
The big benefit r/K has is that leftists can’t think straight in the presence of it. And that will only get worse when everyone accepts it as fact.
The best thing about this video is that he makes so many mistakes and goes over the top calling names and even calling people like Stefan, Bill and Tanya stupid or unscientific and alt right. Watch at around 20min to 24min where he talks about Millennial Woes video of him saying he is naturally r push toward more K due to the stitution of the world and wants to work to improve himself. This guy goes on so far to miss the point of what Millennial Woes was talking about. He goes on stuff about how stupid Millennial Woes is (which makes him look dumb since it is a different subject) and how Species evolution can not be change ever. Has he not hear of Sub species?
Anyway good news for you Anonymous Conservative, he mentions your book a lot and since he is wrong on many different things misleading people and attacking many different people that some regard highly it will attract some to look into r/K selection.
Also someone who is neutral to r/K has already made a response video on where some of the things that were wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG2iFmJn3gM
It is funny. Bad press may actually be more effective in promotion than good press, because of the amygdala triggering focusing people.
During the Great Depression, nobody got depression.
“we are not only the most tech-savvy demographic” Where social media = tech.
I think they missed some. Most of them aren’t much use for anything but social media.
Yes. Almost all depression (maybe indeed all cases) could be cured by setting these people down in the middle of the wilderness to struggle for survival for at least a couple of weeks (with some experts to aid them, or else they’d just die). Occasionally people do this and find that they feel really alive again, and free of their anxieties and petty obsessions. Heck, it works just to go out and work on a farmstead, not necessarily a struggle for survival.
Beats back the feminism too.
If we could find a way to periodically expose people to this kind of experience it would keep the rabbitry to a minimum. Easy to say of course…