Introduction: How can we enhance our ability to think deeply?
Not long ago, when Heytea was all the rage across the country, one day when passing by a shopping mall, I saw a newly opened Heytea store, and unsurprisingly, there was a queue of several dozen meters long outside.
Among the people queuing, there were people of all ages and genders. Surprisingly, there were quite a few white-collar workers in formal attire and carrying briefcases. Some were clearly in a hurry, constantly checking their watches, looking around left and right, and impatiently stomping their feet on the spot.
Out of curiosity, I took a look around the entire team to find out how they spent their time.
Guess what I saw?
Ninety percent of people are playing Honor of Kings.
Yes, these two hottest words of the moment are combined in this way without any sense of incongruity.
Although “Don’t judge” was my creed, at that time, I still couldn’t help but have such a question:
Why are these people so idle?
Why are they willing to spend a lot of time on these things?
From a psychological perspective, I can effortlessly list over a dozen mechanisms for “why people are willing to queue up to buy Heytea”. But if I were to put myself in the shoes of others and have to wait in line for several hours to buy a cup of milk tea, I would still think it’s just too unimaginable.
Similarly, as an old player who has experienced pure text MUDs (revealing age), I also fully understand all the mechanisms behind the game. However, spending several hours every day on games still makes me feel: It’s too extravagant.
With so much time, wouldn’t it be better to read some books?
From September 27th to October 1st, 1995, a conference was held in San Francisco, USA, gathering over 500 political and economic elites from around the world, including Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, and the chairmen of major top enterprises, among others.
What is the theme of the meeting? How to deal with globalization.
At the meeting, all the participants unanimously agreed that globalization would exacerbate the gap between the rich and the poor, concentrating wealth in the hands of 20% of the world’s population while marginalizing the other 80%.
So, how can the conflicts between these 80% of people and the 20% of the elite be resolved? How can we dissolve the excessive energy and dissatisfaction of these 80% of the population and divert their attention?
At that time, Brzezinski, a senior American think tank, believed that the only way was to put a “pacifier” in this 80% of the population. Let them be content with the entertainment information tailored for them, gradually losing their enthusiasm, the desire to resist and the ability to think.
He said, “In the near future, the public will lose their ability to think and judge independently. Eventually, they will expect the media to think for them and make judgments.”
This is the well-known “Tittytainment” strategy, which is a combination of “Titty” (pacifier) and “Entertainment” (entertainment), and is translated into Chinese as “Nai Tou Le” (a somewhat vulgar translation).
What exactly is the “Nai Tou Le” strategy?
First, it is to develop industries for venting. Specifically, this includes the pornography industry, the gambling industry, the development of violent TV dramas and games, and the concentrated coverage of endless verbal battles and conflicts, etc., allowing the public to vent their excess energy.
Second, it is to develop satisfactions of industries. This includes numerous reports on trivial and boring matters such as entertainment news, celebrity gossip, and family affairs, the development of cheap brands, various small favors and activities, as well as popular entertainment industries like idol dramas and variety shows, all of which make the public indulge in pleasure and comfort, thus losing their motivation to progress and the ability to think deeply.
In a nutshell, those marginalized people, as long as they are given a bite to eat, a job and something to see, will be immersed in “happiness” and have no intention of challenging the existing ruling class.
Did this strategy succeed?
So far, it seems quite successful.
Yes, I’m talking about all idol dramas, celebrities, the entertainment industry, Weibo hot search topics, violent conflicts, emotional incitement, class opposition, and childish games.
This kind of information is everywhere in our daily vision. But among all these, 99% of them have nothing to do with us at all and offer us not even the slightest value.
On Weibo’s trending topics, you can buy or rush. Just give the marketing team enough money and you can list whatever you want.
Most of the news on Baidu is clickbait. It’s either that a certain celebrity has a new drama or that someone has been involved in another scandal.
Not to mention information platforms like Toutiao and the various push notifications that go viral on wechat Moments.
When the first season of “Crossing the Line” first came out, I was immediately impressed. After all, it is a valuable and meaningful variety show, which is very rare.
But after watching a few episodes, you will gradually find that speculation begins to give way to sentimentality, and logic can never stand up to the story.
Watching the real-time voting, the most distinct feeling is that the audience doesn’t care about the logic or who makes sense; they only care about who speaks more emotionally and vividly. Usually, as soon as the background music changes and it turns into a piano solo, the mood starts to build up and the number of votes begins to change.
Among that group of contestants, the one I admire more is Chen Ming.
Whether it is the perspective of thinking or logical reasoning, in terms of performance alone, they are more than one level above others – of course, this does not mean that others are not competent; it is very likely that they just choose different routes and strategies.
But the production team spared no effort to label Chen Ming ‘an as the “King of Inspirational Quotes”. Every time he stood up to speak, Ma Weiwei would always blurt out, “Love is calling for again at the center of the world.” – If I were Chen Ming, I think I wouldn’t like this feeling, because it would be a misinterpretation and an insult.
But why is it like this? Because the audience can only understand these.
Recently, Zhihu has been discussing a topic: How should we view the increasing number of big V users who have gained thousands or tens of thousands of followers by Posting photos, fabricating stories, and plagiarizing jokes?
Someone put it very well: For the same person, an answer that gets 1,000 likes for taking a viral photo, 1,000 likes for writing an emotional story, and less than 100 likes for popularizing professional knowledge, getting recommendations from editors, and likes from a bunch of big V users – if it were you, how would you choose?
McLuhan once said, “We create tools, and tools in turn shape us.”
Here, it’s the same: the media we choose shape us in the same way.
Coincidentally, Kenichi Ohmae mentioned in “The Low-IQ Society” that the new generation in Japan is gradually entering a “low-IQ society”. The books they read are becoming increasingly childish. They don’t think at all about all kinds of rumors and are easily manipulated by the media. They just muddle through and have no fighting spirit…
He even mentioned one thing:
Through the “security struggle”, the Japanese government realized that if it turned a blind eye to the excessive student movement, it would lead to its downfall. Therefore, the government began to implement a “policy of keeping the people ignorant” from then on. One representative measure among them is the implementation of the “deviation value education system”.
Kenichi Ohmae explained it this way:
Due to the implementation of the deviation value system, human capabilities have been digitized, so Japanese students are often asked questions like “What is your deviation value?”
So they won’t have a sense of crisis in this era. Because in their minds, no matter what happens in this society in the future, it will be solved by those with “high deviation values”. You don’t need to waste your brain cells. Just do as others say.
They are accustomed to making comparisons within the same class or grade group, and then think that those with high deviation values should naturally go to work in government departments. Similarly, those who can enter the media industry are also regarded as having a high deviation value.
So, they believe that all the decisions made by the government are correct and all the words said by the media are trustworthy.
This is the current situation of Japanese society. Everyone regards the government and the media as guides for their own lives. They simply don’t think or reflect.
Isn’t this also another kind of “milk head fun”?
By blocking your hopes, making you live within the framework set by others for you, stopping thinking, losing the ability to be independent, and becoming increasingly dependent on the environment.
In private, when I was chatting with a group of friends (well, those familiar ones like Grandpa Gao, Zeng Shaoxian, Sun Quanquan…), Everyone would say: We chose the Hard mode.
Because those who are willing to think deeply and read our articles are inherently a niche group.
What is popular among the masses? Emotions, viewpoints, positions, taking sides – reading articles is for relaxation. It’s best not to make me use my brain anymore.
After all, in our lives, there are far too many things artificially created to attract our attention – idol dramas, blockbusters, variety shows, entertainment gossip, online games, hot news, and so on.
In fact, just staying focused every day is already a very difficult thing for us.
Take hot news for example. Behind every APP push, there is an operation team that works together, pooling their wisdom and efforts. After going through a series of stages such as the first draft, initial review, and re-review, it is supported by professional consumer behavior studies and uses all kinds of copywriting techniques. What is the purpose? It’s just to catch your attention and click in.
Similarly, for an online game, there might be a team of several hundred people behind it. They use the most cutting-edge technology and the most detailed data, and through all-round channels such as sound, light, interaction, and feedback, under the guidance of various theories in psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, etc., they meticulously create it – what is the purpose? To create a virtual space to kill your time.
Behind a variety show, there might be a script precise to the second, five or six camera positions on site, and multiple rehearsals and trainings. From the scenes to the lighting, to the music, and even the characters’ costumes, tones, and movements, everything is meticulously adjusted. The aim is to immerse you and make you forget the passage of time while watching.
Conversely, whether it is learning, reading, thinking or writing, which of these things has such a powerful momentum? Reduce the “reach cost” to such a low level?
It doesn’t exist.
This is the cage that consumer entertainment culture has created for us.
And we were walking in step by step, contentedly.
Of course, I’m not against appropriate entertainment; otherwise, life would be a bit too tiring.
But what is a more common phenomenon? After work, I was exhausted. Thinking “I have to study tonight”, I couldn’t help but reach out to my phone, browse Weibo and play Honor of Kings. It was already late at night when I put down my phone. While telling myself, “I’ll work harder tomorrow,” I took a bath, washed up and then went to sleep.
The next day, life repeated exactly the same as the previous day.
This is very normal. As mentioned earlier, all entertainment products – TV dramas, variety shows, and games – have huge teams behind them. The sole purpose of these teams is to use every possible means to reduce the “resistance” for you to reach them.
They will keep popping up in your field of vision, reminding you with all kinds of information and messages and luring you to click. Once you click, you will never be given the chance to leave again.
Think about it. How long has it been since you last truly did something for your goal?
What is the most serious thing here?
Once you get used to this kind of “low cost, high return” stimulus, it will be very difficult for you to do those “high-investment” things.
A person’s threshold will keep rising.
So, in this era, it seems that we find it hard to experience emotional fluctuations, to immerse ourselves in something, and to focus on doing one thing.
Because our brain has been shaped by the surrounding environment into an object with a “high stimulation threshold”.
When you get used to obtaining a great deal of pleasure easily, you will gradually become desensitized to this kind of pleasure.
Over time, this intensity of pleasure can no longer satisfy you. You need higher-intensity, more sustained and deeper stimulation.
Relatively speaking, behaviors that bring less pleasure and require more effort – such as learning, reading, and thinking – are naturally not willing to be done by anyone.
What consequences will there be if this continues?
In the near future, the public will lose their ability to think and judge independently. Eventually, they will expect the media to think for them and make judgments.
This is a very terrifying thing.
Finally, I’d like to give you a few suggestions:
- Reject childish language stimulation
What is language stimulation for young children? The vast majority of Internet buzzwords are. Such as “I’m drunk too”, “666”, “heartbreaking”, “Look at this face, it’s long and wide”…
Why do you say so? Because language shapes our thinking.
I’m not saying that “awesome” is necessarily inferior to “powerful”, “excellent” or “outstanding” – but if one day, when we want to express “powerful”, we only say “awesome”, wouldn’t that be terrifying?
In daily life, try to set aside some time to read in-depth and excellent books and articles to maintain your understanding and application ability of the language.
“Whoever masters language masters thought.” “
- Refuse inferior products that steal attention
If possible, refuse to follow the crowd, reject those superficial variety shows, TV dramas, hot news and entertainment industry information, and only watch the best works.
What is the most outstanding work? At least, it’s breakthrough, not anti-intellectual, thought-provoking, sincere and requires some brainpower – “Black Mirror” is quite good, and “Game of Thrones” is also acceptable.
Don’t let yourself become a slave to “pleasure”.
Not using one’s brain can bring short-term pleasure and relaxation, but in the long run, it can only lead to emptiness and boredom.
- Set meaningful goals for yourself
Find something with long-term benefits and gain happiness from it – this is something you need to do before the age of 30.
Many people ask me: You don’t watch TV series, movies, variety shows, parties or play games. What exactly do you do in your daily life?
I said, “Study.”
They asked, “Don’t you feel bored?”
Every time one acquires a new piece of knowledge and incorporates it into one’s own thinking system, the pleasure it brings is unparalleled. How could one feel bored?
So, please find something that can bring you long-term benefits and happiness, and incorporate it into your daily schedule.
There is no need to pursue material gains or demand to become an expert in a field. Its significance lies in helping you fight against the lazy, ordinary and dull daily life. Keep your mind clear.
This is enough.