I think taking the theoretical approach lined up by Anna Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation is the right frame to work with here. The essential idea is that pain and pleasure are on a balance point. The body works to keep pleasure and pain experiences at a homeostasis. That means, if you apply pain to the system (going for a run) the body reacts by applying and equal and opposite pleasure reaction to the other side of the system (the runners high). The same can be said for applying pleasure to the system (scrolling social media feels relaxing for a while but you often feel bad afterwards). I imagine that highly stimulating media acts on the endogenous opioid system (the naturally occurring opioids in the human body, also known as endorphins). This system is the system responsible for two major things in the human experience; natural pain reduction and the feeling of social connection. What we so often get, symbolically, from very stimulating media is the illusion of social connection. It is interesting, but not fulfilling because it lacks the benefits of true connection. So, with the pleasure we are adding to the system from highly engaging media we are creating in a child the rebound of feeling grumpy, unrested, and bored.

It crowds out boredom, which is when kids invent their own games and sit with their thoughts. We're trading that for passive consumption.

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  RaissaComment

  Boredom as a gift—hard sell but true.