Escaping Our Genes
For the past 12,000 years, humanity has engaged in a tragic race of running from its genes.? Humanity evolved to live in institutions of our genes—the family and our tribe.? Today, we spend about 20% of our time there.? We commit 80% of our conscious hours to artificial institutions created by our mind—cultural, social, government, bureaucratic, and economic environments, and most recently virtual space.
Institutions are the building blocks of our non-physical environment. There are two types—institutions of our genes and institutions of our mind.? The family and our tribe are institutions of our genes.? Virtual space, nations, economies, communities, businesses, and many more are institutions of the mind.?
Institutions of the mind are a relatively recent development.? Prior to the Agricultural Revolution, there were few institutions of the mind.? The Agricultural Revolution generated a massive increase in institutions of the mind.? When virtual space arrived around 2000, it created a vast new environment for institutions of the mind.
All species seek out niches in the environment in which they can prosper and survive.? When Homo sapiens first did this, they created institutions of their genes.? Then leveraging their intellect, they created an artificial world made up of institutions of the mind. In the process, they left behind much of their environmental niche and sought new environmental niches in the artificial world they created.?
Homo sapiens evolved 315,000 years ago.? For a little over 300,000 years, they have evolved, lived, and thrived in institutions of our genes.
As a species, we have not changed much since the Agricultural Revolution twelve thousand years ago.? We have not yet evolved to the point that we are well adapted to institutions of the mind.? We are the least well-adapted to many of our newest institutions in virtual space. As one might expect, the rise of virtual space triggered a startling increase in mental health challenges.
Since virtual space arrived, the number of individuals suffering from mental health issues has increased dramatically.? Depression increased significantly in the U.S. from 6.6 percent in 2005 to 7.3 percent in 2015. The rise was most rapid among those aged 12 to 17, reaching 12.7 percent in 2015.[i] Suicide rates have increased by 33% and were responsible for more than 47,500 deaths in 2019.[ii], 4 A recent study concluded that among college-age students narcissistic personality traits rose just as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the present.[iii] Nearly 1 out of every 16 Americans has experienced the symptoms of NPD—Narcissistic Personality Disorder.[iv] Anxiety has increased from 5.12% in 2008 to 6.68% in 2018 among adult Americans.[v]? Currently, nearly one in five adults in the U. S., ( 51.5 million in 2019 ) suffer from mental illness that can range in impact from no impairment to mild, moderate, or severe. Alarmingly, 5.2% of the population exhibits the symptoms of severe impairment.[vi]
Undoubtedly, numerous factors contributed to these increases.?
There are no known studies quantifying the contribution our maladaptation to virtual space has to the problem.? But there are numerous studies indicating a high degree of correlation between the heavy use of social media and various forms of emotional disorder. Numerous studies have been able to identify instances where the heavy use of the internet has increased the level of emotional distress.?
Facebook has been studying the impact of Instagram on mental health since 2019.? Their studies found that “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” and that “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.”? Among Instagram users, 25% of teenagers who reported feeling “not good enough” said the feelings were triggered by Instagram.? On Facebook users are surrounded by the perfect and patched-up perfect and find themselves constantly engaging in a comparison race with the ideal—a perfect formula for destroying self-esteem.
Research funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), tracked internet usage of nearly 1,800 individuals across 11 well-known social media platforms.? It concluded
heavy users of social media were 2.7 times more likely to be depressed than casual users.[vii]? Researchers suspect that when emotionally vulnerable individuals spend large amounts of time comparing themselves with the “perfect images” of others on social media they worry about being left out and question their own self-worth leading to depression.[viii]? So even though the rate of depression went from 6.6 to 7.3 percent, an increase of about 20%, it is possible that a significantly greater share of heavy users of virtual space that suffered from depression saw an increase in its intensity.
Virtual space powers the growth of narcissism.? Many who spend time on social networks constantly compare themselves to the images others present of themselves. Those images are frequently doctored to make the presenter look better than they really are.? The attempt to compete can lead to grandiose exhibitionism, one of the effects of narcissistic personalities, since those with high scores on grandiose exhibitionism tend to amass more friends on Facebook.[ix]
While it is relatively easy to accept that we are maladapted to virtual space, it is difficult to accept that we are maladapted to most institutions of the mind.
We are maladapted to most institutions in virtual space because they seek to program our behavior.? Social networks attempt to direct our behavior on the internet and get us to spend time on selected sites. As discussed above, spending vast amounts of time on social networks has negative impacts on our mental health.?
All institutions of the mind have a purpose and seek to program our behavior so they can achieve their goals.? The programming forces used by most institutions of the mind are relatively weak compared with those of social networks.
Institutions of the mind, such as cities, nations, and economies, strive for success.? In the process, a city will attempt to attract citizens, businesses, and cultural institutions, but when they do they are engaging in programming our behavior.?
领英推荐
In recent years, several anthropologists such as James Suzman, have been pondering the question of whether hunter-gatherers were and are happier than modern man. A number have concluded they were.
Hunter gathers spend most if not all of their time living in institutions of their genes.?
I suspect that most of us would be happier if we committed more of our time to institutions of our genes and less to what many label as the rat race when we immerse ourselves in institutions of the mind.?
So instead of running from our genes, spend more time engaged with institutions of our genes.? Commit more hours to family and members of your tribe.
________________________________________________________________
William, thanks for sharing!
uninterrupted innovation is key - even if too many hope to ignore innovation - I facilitate hands-on innovativeness with leading-edge champions in Europe as innovation facilitator and curator of (non-)knowledge inflows
10 个月we seek The poem of pure reality, untouched By trope or deviation, straight to the word, Straight to the transfixing object, to the object At the exactest point at which it is itself, Transfixed by being purely what it is. Wallace Stevens in his An Ordinary Evening in New Haven https://modernistcommons.ca/islandora/object/yale:415 Wallace Stevens reading parts of his poem at Penn Sounds https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Stevens-Wallace.php or directly here https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Stevens-Wallace/Voice-of-the-Poet/Stevens-Wallace_From-An-Ordinary-Evening-In-New%20Haven.mp3 [and I would dare to continue] perhaps we are on the right way and it is less transcending ourselves in Starwars than dépasser la condition humaine pundits say technological overstimulation might not lead to less phantasy or less entertainment which kind of entertainment or otium do we really need to charge batteries goods of art and stimulation #touchingtherealinfrastructure and triggering our playfully exploring ways to #resist_smarter thank you William Davidow for keeping us on our toes