Could sports content be inadvertently helping fuel the worldwide increase in anxiety, depression, and unhappiness?

TL;DR

• The rate of anxiety and depression is going up across the world. It's growing fastest in the wealthiest nations.
• After watching digital sports content we get a dopamine deficit, creating a craving to watch more.
• Consuming high volumes of digital sports content can induce a chronic dopamine deficit state, equivalent to clinical depression or clinical anxiety.
• Sports are often cited as part of the solution to mental health challenges. However, the act of physical participation in sports has a very different impact on individuals than the consumption of sports content.
• Does the sports industry continue to increase digital content output or seek more healthy alternative routes to engaging people?

Sports are often cited as part of the solution to mental health challenges. However, the act of physical participation in sports has a very different impact on individuals than the consumption of sports content.

What drives the difference in mental health impacts between sports participation and sports content consumption?

Dopamine – or should I say the different way our brain releases and regulates dopamine when exercising versus consuming content (e.g. via TV or digitally) has marked differences.

美国斯坦福大学 Psychiatrist and addiction expert Anna Lembke explains.

Pleasure and pain are co-located in the brain.?Broadly speaking, they work like opposite sides of a seesaw. When you experience pain it tips one way, pleasure the other.

However, the body wants the balance to remain level. Any deviation and our brains work hard to restore equilibrium.?

So if we get a pleasurable experience, our brain adapts to an increase in dopamine by regulating its transmission.?

But rather than return it to a balanced state, it offsets by bringing it to below baseline and producing an equal and opposite amount of pain i.e. it creates a feeling of come down and craving.

What’s this got to do with sports content?

Well if, for example, we watch a TikTok video from our favourite team our brain will be stimulated and we'll experience a dopamine hit. Our body will then quickly offset this pleasure with an equal and opposite amount of pain i.e. we’ll immediately want another video to satisfy the craving we feel as the body will want to boost dopamine levels.

If we wait it out and don't watch another video, equilibrium will be restored. However, if we keep scrolling and watching one video after another on TikTok each time, our hedonic set point (i.e. the point at which we experience pleasure) will eventually change and we’ll need more and more ‘digital drugs’ to feel pleasure.

Digital fan engagement is on the rise

We are seeing a huge increase in the production and distribution of sports content and investment in digital fan engagement products, with success being measured by reach and engagement.

Essentially the content could be considered as digital intoxicants pinging our brain all day long causing sudden spikes followed by dopamine freefall that has us craving to watch again. Repeated exposure leaves us in a constant state of craving.

Therefore high volumes of snackable digital sports content "act like a fire hose of dopamine, causing our brain to react by reducing dopamine transmission and contributing, for many, to a chronic dopamine deficit state, equivalent to clinical depression or clinical anxiety," says Lembke

But sports participation is different.?

Exercise delivers a salutary dopamine experience

In the latter half of exercise, we get a gradual increase in dopamine and when we stop, dopamine levels remain elevated for hours afterwards.?Participation is a slower, more enduring, and salutary dopamine experience rather than the quick hit digital content gives us.

The sports industry's dopamine dilemma

So this leaves the sports with a bit of a moral dilemma.?

Do we continue to dial up our presence in the damaging short-form attention game (i.e. if we can’t beat them, join them) or do we seek more challenging, but healthy, alternative routes to engaging people?

Is it a cost of doing business and can the positive outputs of sports content marketing (e.g. measurable increases in sports participation and activity frequency) be shown to outweigh the negative impacts?

Or do we take the higher ground and regulate the volume and frequency of content we share, facilitating breaks in consumption to allow fans' dopamine levels to reset? Obviously, we can't control their digital content consumption elsewhere, but at least we'll know we've done our bit.

The commercial reality is that nothing will change, at least not from choice

Undoubtedly commercial imperatives and individual incentives will influence behaviour, no matter the greater good or possible concerns expressed publicly. I don’t for a minute think that knowing this will change behaviours. Look how slow we have been to adopt sustainable practices.

But what about your mental health?

But it does make you think, doesn’t it? If nothing else, about your own habits and the impact of being a fan and engaging with digital content, might be having on you.

I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments below.

Notes

?? Source of information, quotes, and inspiration from the How To Academy Podcast, ‘Stanford Psychiatrist and Addiction Expert Anna Lembke - The New Neuroscience of Pleasure, Pain, and Balance'.

Listen here: https://shorturl.at/quwPV

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