VideoGamesElectronicMedia
Video Games, Electronic Media, Weapons of Mass Distraction, & Destruction making Excitable Brains more Excitable.
A. Electronic media and many other forms of entertainment are weapons of mass distraction, and may be having great effects on the mind by taking away freedom and choice.
B. Mindfulness in itself and used in meditation sole goal to bring about “knowing” of reality and how the mind works so that we may have the choice and the freedom not be caught in a cycle of reacting reflexively automatically and habitually, mostly unconsciously , with and to our bodily sensations, our thoughts, feelings, and from the environment. It gives us the choice and the freedom to have an informed knowing response based on what is, not what we are driven to do by getting more pleasure, avoiding pain, and ignoring the uninteresting, the neutral the boring, that we have distorted by our pre mature conclusions and reactions.
C. We are learning that we have less and less, if any control to what the output of our mind is, and the same can be said for what is imputed from environmental sources like electronic media. The place of choice and freedom is what we input into our mind, and how we respond to the inputs.
D. The knowing mind, wants to know, the feeling-thinking-doing mind, want to feel-think-do, the sensing mind, whether the input is from within, or from the environment wants to sense, this is the way things are set up. They all work together, inter connected and inter dependent on each other. The critical thing for us is our minds individual input. The more we use our mind to input, the more control and freedom we have, if it is done mindfully. Left on its own this knowing, sensing-feeling, thinking, doing mind will do what it is designed to, not taking much care to protect itself in total or its parts in the long run. Without proper input it chooses short term gain, avoid painful reality, ignore the neutral, and this is reinforced by all electronic media.
E. Neurological biochemical tracks form that get deeper and deeper, that want more and more of the same. They become harder and harder to shift out of, more like ruts, and tunnels that we cant get out of, in part because we have given up control and freedom. When these highly stimulating things aren’t present the mind craves them, and cant “function “ without them. They function like an electronic addicting drug. There is wanting, craving, habituation and withdrawal. The brain-mind is getting too too much of unwholesome distracting and habit forming stuff that is making already over excitable brains , more and more excitable, wanting more and more of the stimulation that is causing the problem. Like any addicting process one cant live without it, and eventually as you need more and more, the toxicity builds and you cant live with it.
F. Too many senses especially the “sense of mind” being over stimulated, over and over again, needed it, and becoming so one cant function without it. Critical mental and the resulting physical resources are depleted, used up, made tired, worn out, dull, less and less functional. Basic things, like concentration, the ability to control one emotions, especially worry , sadness, anger, the mind become overly agitated, unfocused with poorer control and attention. Micro muscles become over stimulated, as are the senses especially the mind sense, less and less reserve or other things; physical functions like sleep get poorer. Basically the knowing, sensing, feeling, thinking mind & doing body all suffer and eventually performance goes down hill, slows down, and parts of the whole just stop working all together.
G. It is us more than passing interest that mindfulness training does the opposite of what over use of the electronic media does. Is it a remedy, a preventive measure? It may or may not be, but certainly mindfulness cultivation give one freedom and control as one understands how the mind works, and one applies mindfulness to daily living. If experienced the inner satisfaction of the body mind complex is greater than that of electronic media, but though mindfulness practice is easy to understand it is hard to do, because of the very things that the electronic media cultivate, distraction, poor concentration, and not knowing , and teaching one how to deal with distracting potentially damaging dangerous things , in the very same way highly distracting, emphasis on reaction and reflex, rather than to respond with informed knowing, with damaging dangerous things, the very motivation, intention and the doing in the media especially video games.
H. A dangerous distracting destructive dilemma, perhaps even deadly, at least in motivation and intention. Is this just to the excitable brain, or for all brains? Experience will tell, and mindful experience may be a solution!
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 mental 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. Mindfulness offers the power of insight , multimedia adventure the power of sensual accomplishment.
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. Mindfulness enhancing and stabilizing mental and emotional functioning as it generally reduces stress with increased peace of mind.
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.