Das moderne Leben ist möglicherweise schneller als der menschliche Geist. Menschliche Instinkte, die in kleinen, eng verbundenen Gruppen geformt werden, müssen sich nun durch dichte Städte, digitale Plattformen und ständige soziale Vergleiche zurechtfinden – ein evolutionäres Missverhältnis, das zu Stress, Einsamkeit und schlechterem Wohlbefinden beitragen kann.
https://www.asiaresearchnews.com/content/modern-life-may-be-outpacing-human-mind
26 Kommentare
The internet on its own is a massive change to humanity.
Instead of peer groups of a few friends, classmates, coworkers; now we have a peer group of billions.
It’s not just holding us to high standards, but to massively conflicting ones. Little wonder
People can be overwhelmed.
An important concept in education is that of Big Fish, Little Pond. It means that it’s mentally better for you to do well in a lower level group, than to be mediocre in a higher level group, even if the second scenario means you will be at a higher overall level.
I see it a lot at work, as a teacher. Education in my country is divided into three tiers, and each year there are a few students who barely scrape by in a higher tier. They get demotivated and start doubting themselves because they are constantly comparing themselves to peers who do better. These kids usually burn out at some point, go down a tier, where they quickly start prospering again because now *they* are the ones the others look up to.
Now imagine this at a world wide scale, where thanks to social media you’re suddenly a very small fish in a very big pond, constantly comparing yourself to the 0,01% of people. When I see what the small-scale classroom situation does to my students, I can only wonder what modern society does to ordinary people like myself.
Given the number of competing avenues for human attention and the extreme rate of change, I think there is a likelihood of people committing obsessively to issue networks to reduce cognitive dissonance and create an enclave of what feels like safety, which reinforces erroneous beliefs and behaviors.
This can create an environment where people become closed off to science, reason or anything that doesn’t reinforce their beliefs. In essence, they may become luddites denying the changing world around them. Then, working to grow these particular issue networks into political power.
In a world of 8 billion, humans feel lonelier than ever. Alexa, play the entire album of In the Court of the Crimson King.
This is nothing new. Japan was the first to experience this type of alienation in the 80s and 90s. The rest of the world could have taken note and learned from it.
E.O Wilson’s qoute fits here.
„“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
This isn’t surprising, but I don’t know how we counter it. In the past 30 years we’ve experienced widespread adoption of the internet, as well as the introduction of the smartphone, social media, and now AI and all its generated content. That’s an awful lot for the human brain to try to adapt to in what is really quite a short period of time.
Previously the only individuals you could really compare yourself to were friends, family, classmates, colleagues, essentially only those that you interacted with in real life. Now it’s possible, within seconds, to compare yourself to almost anybody on the planet, 24/7/365. It’s easy to remind oneself that comparison is the thief of joy and that just because things look rosy doesn’t mean they actually are, but that doesn’t stop the damaging psychological effects of platforms such as Instagram.
Maybe it’s because I was a teenager before social media came about, but a large part of me wishes we could go back to what felt like simpler times.
Unless this is a study with some sort of novel methodology… Isn’t all this generally recognized to be true?
Hmm I would put some stock into this hypothesis if I didn’t live in a rural area. Perspective is difficult for human beings. If the hypothesis were true and highly influential on well-being, you might expect rural folks to have wonderful lives, or at least less stress.
I can tell you that it’s even harder. More suicides, more substance use disorder, intergenerational trauma, far fewer resources to educate and treat people, etc etc. The only people (in the aggregate) who are doing well in Vermont, where I live, are ones connected to the global economy and therefore wealthier and able to leave the area for needs that aren’t met locally.
Although, what I describe could be just a feature of the US economic system – the corporate vacuum cleaner sucking all economic potential from everywhere, and the impact on denser population centers is still sustainable but in rural areas is simply not.
People are desperately clinging to tiny things in common with others on the internet, trying to find community. We weren’t meant to isolate ourselves like this, and the internet is not an acceptable substitute for true human connection.
We discussed this in a physiology of the human brain class I took in college in 1989. The professor said the human brain had evolved to a certain state of standard social development where most people knew and interacted with fewer than 30 people on a daily basis, then the industrial revolution occurred and within a few hundred years most of the population lived in areas where we were surrounded by thousands or even millions of people, and might indirectly interact with hundreds or thousands every day. We haven’t had time to evolve for the change in social engagement.
If we make it another few thousand years down the road it will be interesting to see how humanity evolves after the dawn of the internet
Why are we posting ai slop now
Essentially the some reason I’m not allowed to bring a raccoon inside and let it live with me. So, my proposal is that we either do away with social technology, or let me have a pet raccoon. It’s only fair.
Yeah. I could have told you that. This is the origin of nearly every „mental illness.“ It’s really a societal illness.
I didn’t think this was new information.
weird way to word „there’s a billionaire class actively intervening in human well-being‘ but ok
I’ve been thinking this for ages. Not amused to see it confirmed 🙁
Agriculture was a mistake.
Okay sure yeah, study this academically that’s great. But when I saw the post headline I laughed. Dear scientists, sociologists, psychologists etc – it is brutally apparent that humanity was not meant to live under the soul crushing thumb of capitalism. You guys are missing the greater point here.
I like to say to myself „I did not evolve for this“
Exactly.
People are not supposed to live in cars.
It’s ludicrous that we have a de facto ban on new housing in some places.
How do you fix this stuff if this is just democracy working as intended?
Yeah, this is pseudoscience.
Evolutionary psychology doesn’t have any research methods. Conceptual review isn’t even a standard article type. This is a relatively strong performance of scientific aesthetics without any actual original research to contribute.
Nor are the ideas original—here’s the same just-so story published 10 years ago:
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/39379114/Evolutionary_Mismatch_and_Chronic_Psycho20151023-8475-jhnyfo-libre.pdf?1445638407=
And it’s trivial to find dozens of examples going back to the 90s.
Here’s the OG evolutionary psychologist, and still the only truly sane one, pointing out all the MANY, MANY reasons this kind of reasoning is extremely difficult to demonstrate.
https://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/10.1.1.140.7434.pdf
The problem is that behaviors are too nuanced and varied to be 1:1 adaptations in the way evo psych requires. It’s a failed field: human physiology and inheritance just don’t work this way.
Anyway, yes, living in the polycrisis era is stressful. But not because we’re mentally wired to be in 150-person kin bands
Digital platform and constant social comparisons, yes. Big cities, no. Between ancient cities and clan/moiety system that literally encompass entire continents humans have been able to conceive of, and place themselves within, large, expansive social structures probably since forever. If you want to talk about how social media and the constant barrage or interpersonal comparison that comes with it then yea,h you’re definitely onto something.
small, close-knit groups“ sounds so specific for something we’ve outgrown
People have been living in large, crowded cities for literally thousands of years. I’m sorry but that’s not new in any way, shape or form.