Living Life in a Black Mirror Episode

How the world has been built to sedate us

An apartment. A teenage boy is sitting and happily watching a show on TV with a packet of crisps in his hand.

Zoom out.

His next-door neighbour, a woman in her 30s glances at the TV, but her hand moves rhythmically on a second screen, with a glass of red wine in the other.

Zoom out.

Looking through the windows of the entire building, we’re met with a similar sight. Families, kids and adults with their eyes glued to screens – big and small – the world outside does not exist.

It’s a scene straight out of a Black Mirror episode. But it’s not fiction. It’s our world—a world built to sedate us.

The Sedation of Modern Life

What is the most basic of all human needs? Survival. What happens when survival becomes easy? When we’re not consumed by it every waking moment?

What do we see from our ancestors? What are our other needs? We’ve reached a point in time when each of these are fulfilled. Almost, but not quite.

Seeking community and connection? Instagram. Facebook. And all the other social media platforms providing an illusion of togetherness.

Mating and reproduction?? We’ve got porn and OnlyFans.

Craving accomplishment and camaraderie? Easy. We’ve got videogames.

Adversity and competition? We’ve got the internet. We’ve got Reddit and Twitter. Gear up with your keyboard, people thousands of miles away are awaiting your presence on the battlefield. Say what you want without being held accountable. Declare yourself a winner. Feel satiated.

Enjoyment? Cannabis. Alcohol. Psychedelics. More drugs. More sedation.

The Great Paradox. The world we built is now controlling us. Hijacking each one of our senses. Keeping us sedated. It’s like we’re living underwater – our bodies moving slowly. A habitat not quite meant for humans to survive and thrive. Stuck in oblivion.

The Slow Catastrophe of the Modern Age

Human history is littered with catastrophes and disasters of monumental scale, that have left deep scars. The Black Death. The Chernobyl Nuclear incident. The Famine. The kind so mighty, they’ve left lasting scars on generations of us. And the most recent one we’ve lived through – COVID-19. But I argue, that we’re currently going through the strangest and the most widespread catastrophe of all time – a blight of our minds. There’s no sudden explosion, no visible ruin, but it’s managed to tranquilize everyone, everywhere, all at once. Inoculated us with a slow-moving parasite eroding our connection to life as we once knew it.

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The Dopamine Dependency

But this sedation isn't accidental—it's rooted in the very chemistry of our brains, where dopamine reigns supreme.

Let’s talk about the human brain and its circuitry that handles reward and anticipation and motivation. A lot of it revolves around the neurotransmitter dopamine. A common misconception is that the neurotransmitter dopamine is released on reward. But it’s actually, fueled by anticipation of the reward, as shown in the extensive research conducted by the renowned neuroendocrinologist and author, Dr Robert Sapolsky. It’s a system that needs to reset quickly. Whatever was a fantastic surprise and wonderful yesterday is going to be what you feel entitled to today and is going to feel insufficient tomorrow. We are wired to constantly seek the next thing, the next novelty, the next rush. We get hungry again and again and whatever was once great, is not going to be enough again, and that’s why we humans do incredibly motivated things – we create and innovate and we go to the moon. How often have you heard someone say – “Oh, to be able to read Harry Potter for the first time again!”

Humans habituate. That’s our basic predicament. But, can we slow this inevitable onslaught of hedonic adaptation?

I don’t think we meant to do this. It definitely wasn’t the idea behind the inception of such inventions. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, this drive served a crucial purpose. It pushed them to innovate, to explore, to go beyond survival. But in today’s world, where innovation has outpaced evolution, this dopamine system has become our trap.

In just 50 years—an evolutionary blink of an eye—technological advancements have accelerated beyond what our brains can handle. We’ve built a world designed to constantly trigger our dopamine circuits, and now, instead of motivating us to explore the real world, we’re left compulsively chasing dopamine through screens. The Great Paradox. We definitely did not mean to do this.

Screen-Mediated Living

We used to draw hieroglyphs on the caves of wall, today, all it requires is tapping the screen of your phone. The power to encase a moment forever. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors did it to share knowledge and pass on experiences crucial for survival.? Today, we just do it. It’s a habit. It’s your birthday? You’re getting married? Click. Something mildly interesting is happening? Click. You’ve worn a well, put-together outfit? Click. Your food looks aesthetic? Click. Your partner is missing you? Click click.

Click.

Click.

Click click click.

Click click click click click.

Even when we’re trying to live in the moment, we’ve lost the ability to truly experience it, and are obsessed with documenting it. It’s turned real life into “screen-mediated living”, wherein everything is filtered and we’re chronically disengaged due to technological distractions.

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The Sedated Social Animal

“Man is a social animal”, Aristotle said, 2500 years ago. But we don’t need to travel back in time to learn this.

I watch TV shows. Sherlock. Scorpion. House. It builds anticipation as the task on hand unfolds. I live vicariously through them. And get the same amount of satisfaction at the end as if I’m the one saving millions of lives. I’m the one solving mysteries. A rush of adrenaline fuelling the dopamine as they chase the bad guys. The problem? These chemicals flood our brains, but our bodies are numb, stuck in a low-stress environment. It’s an illusion. Fictitious. Made up, to capture my brain. Why do I watch Friends and Gilmore girls and How I met your Mother. Why is it fulfilling my need to socialize while I sit isolated in my room?

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Modern Solitary Confinement

Solitary confinement, often employed as a punitive measure in prisons or during investigations, is widely regarded as one of the most detrimental forms of punishment for humans. This is largely due to its deprivation of essential social interaction and sensory stimulation, resulting in severe psychological and physical consequences. In many ways, our contemporary social isolation mirrors this form of confinement. Though we’re surrounded by virtual "friends" and "communities," the lack of meaningful human connection leaves us just as confined, just as isolated, causing lasting damage on our well-being.

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The Dopamine Trap and the Workforce

In a landmark study done by the renowned economist, Nicholas Eberstadt, it was found that approximately 7 million men in the US, between the ages of 25 and 54 (prime working age), who are in the civilian non-institutional population – people who could reasonably be expected to be looking for a job – are neither working, nor looking for work.

In a country where over 11 million jobs are unfilled – most of which have the bare minimum requirement of showing up consistently…and not stoned. Stemming from a system which gives you unconditional “unemployment” benefits, and exacerbated by a country-wide shutdown during COVID-19, Americans have effectively been paid to stay out of workforce. Surveys taken indicate that these unemployed men clock in an average screen time of 2000 hours annually, are on constant “pain medication” of sorts, and engage virtual characters to “scratch the itch” in various scenarios. They have a proxy-substituting for all their human needs from “the sense of community”, to “sense of purpose fulfilment” to “mating”. ?

The U.S. may pay unemployment benefits, but even without that, this sedated lifestyle is percolating globally.

What starts in the West, spreads to the rest.

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Rewiring Our Brains

This brings us back to dopamine. As Dr Sapolsky explains, dopamine is not the pursuit of happiness – it’s about the happiness of pursuit.

The industry of media is built upon catering to us. Instead of experiencing life real time, we’re constantly and vicariously living through others in the virtual world – which is a great way of resetting pleasures that we’ve habituated to. But we need to shift away from this. A good example would be, a parent reliving world again through their child’s eyes, who is in awe of experiencing life for the first time.

Internet – or the dopamine nation – is driving people now. They’re compulsively chasing dopamine through a screen, or through a vape in their hand. Through whatever collective effervescence they’re having with their friends. We’re the species that wants and wants and wants and wants.

The anticipation and the subsequent striving are the things that really motivates us.

In order to live life, we need to detrain dopamine sensitivity. We need to reset our brain. If our system has habituated, how fast does it reset? It differs in every one of us. Our primate brain currently trapped in a world, created by us, but ahead its time, is not equipped to deal with this world in an efficient manner. We’re not naturally creatures of moderation. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors binged on food whenever they found it, due to scarcity of food, and the probability of having to go without it for several days at a time. And now our primitive brain is bingeing and getting its fill of everything, in the quickest way possible.

Are we designing a life that leads to our own extinction? Possibly – yes. If everything is too easy, humans would self-destruct.

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The Way Out

Ergo –

Detrain your dopamine sensitivity. Reset your brain. Step away from all stimuli. Breathe. Live a real life. Surrounded by tangible human beings, in flesh.

Exercise without music. Feel your body move.

Eat a meal with your family.

Have a real face-to-face conversation today.

Our survival doesn’t depend on escaping wild beasts anymore, but it might depend on escaping this dopamine-driven cage. Life is worth living—fully (while sober).

Step away from the digital fog. Experience life in the real world, with real people.

Because life—non-algorithmic, unmediated & unfiltered—is worth it.