Theory of Mindfulness and VideoGames
The Quest for Pleasure and Power: Video Games vs. Mindfulness Meditation
A. We all want have a way to deal with the stresses of everyday living, be calmer on some level, to get a sense of pleasure and power, and temporarily take our mind off the burdens of the past and the future, to quiet the thinking mind, and suspend emotional judgments. Multi media entertainment and mindfulness meditation offer this hope with very different procedures and outcomes.
B. There are similarities in motivation wanting the pleasures of the concentrated mind, between modern over indulgence in multimedia entertainment, many sporting events, movies , TV, and most especially video games, and minimal to no indulgence in solitary and group mental maintenance methods like mindfulness meditation, or others like spiritual-philosophical methods. Both are in a sense a quest for pleasure, to avoid pain, and to deal with the neutral, boring, uninteresting reality, the parts we try to ignore.
C. The major difference is what effect they have on peace of mind and generalizing to mental functioning for daily activities. Concentrated, alert, intuitive experiencing mind of the gamers is restless, dependent, conditioned thus controlled by the multi sensory media, vs. the meditators being calm and peaceful not dependent on external conditions, but controlled by the minds response to itself.
D. The multimedia experience result in much immediate pleasure and sense of personal power by indulging the senses auditory visual tactile with much superficial mental over stimulation highly conditioned and dependent on the media resulting in a mind state similar to hypnosis. Concentrated, some form of pleasurable restless calm, very little peace of mind with control, and real power with in the multimedia inducer of the hypnotic state.
E. The present moment experience of the video game is as follows. The mind seeks to be only in the present moment to achieve a pleasurable and concentrated state, with the thinking mind mostly quiet except what is needed for the game with a resulting restless temporarily calm. It takes one’s mind off problematic memories and future expectations. Thus using as little thinking as possible to be divorced of distracting and distorting emotional charges, attached to the past , present or future, without the “I” or me or mine taking personal responsibility, in this pretend play, yet feeling power leading to increased self esteem as one learns, plays hopefully wins the game. Video games especially offer a venue for such “ego” gratification on a temporary basis, dealing with violent and sensual if not overtly sexual themes. What they don’t offer is true peace of mind because the mind is not truly quiet and calm, but sensually pleasurably excited conditioned and dependent on the media.
F. The present moment experience of mindfulness offers a different concentrated mind than the video experience by using mindful breathing to induce and sustain the mind state of meditative mindfulness, thus only using limited sensory experience of the breath sensations thus limiting the conditions needed and what one is dependent on to achieve a calm, concentrated mind, relaxed body, with the eventual procedural goal to be less and less dependent on any conditions for calm and peace of mind.
G. Video gamers and mindful meditators through their activity put themselves in the present moment achieve a state of sustained concentration that can result in pleasure and power, they temporarily exclude the past and the future, [mindfulness also in a sense doesn’t add to the present, even taking the that burden away], they minimize the thinking minds commentary, logical analysis, and involvement, operating on an intuitive experiential mind mode level, and suspend emotional judgment, though there is much difference in wholesomeness of motivation and intention, for the individual person and evolutionarily for the good of the species, based on immediate and longer term outcomes effecting generalized mental functioning for daily activities.
H. The main similarity is the highly concentrated present moment mind state resulting in pleasure and a sense of power. Mindfulness responds to distractions or problems, the gamer avoids them, meditation tries to minimize and eliminate conditions and dependency as the way to more and more non worldly sensual pleasure, with a goal of lack of desire in sensual worldly pleasures, with loss of “self” in unity of consciousness.
I. The gamer becomes more and more dependent on higher levels of sensory conditions and stimulation to get more and more sensual pleasure that it desires, craves and becomes attached, dependent and addicted, with a temporary merging with the activity , drama, and story of the game or electronic media, and then when it gets shut off there is ego disorganization on rebound, needing re attachment. The ego in a sense merges, dissolves, and reorganizes because it is not in control of the conditions that are stimulating it. Gamer mind is destabilized by playing, meditators is stabilized with generalization to other areas with less stress, enhanced mental performance and emotional stabilization, opposite for the gamer.
J. The gamers mind becomes conditioned and dependent on multi sensory stimulation for concentration and to quiet the thinking mind, and for higher and higher levels of pleasure and satisfaction, which it equates with peace of mind. There is confusion between temporary sensory gratification and peace of mind. There is further confusion about who is in control of what, the gamer believing he controls the media rather than the other way around.