Reading a book, or even watching a movie, is less stimulating than ancestral activities like hunting or fighting. So maybe stimulation by itself isn’t the problem, and instead of “superstimuli” we should be worried about activities that are low effort and/or fruitless. From that perspective, reading a book can be both difficult and fruitful (depending on the book—reading Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald isn’t the same as reading a generic romance or young adult novel). And creativity is both difficult and fruitful. So we shouldn’t put these things on par with watching tiktok.
Reading a book, or even watching a movie, is less stimulating than ancestral activities like hunting or fighting. So maybe stimulation by itself isn’t the problem, and instead of “superstimuli” we should be worried about activities that are low effort and/or fruitless. From that perspective, reading a book can be both difficult and fruitful (depending on the book—reading Dostoevsky or Fitzgerald isn’t the same as reading a generic romance or young adult novel). And creativity is both difficult and fruitful. So we shouldn’t put these things on par with watching tiktok.