I’ve been thinking about a related concept that I’ve been calling “feeling hedonic”. There is a certain state that I get into after surfing on Facebook or playing video games where my behavior seems to be reasonably well-described by me just seeking out the immediate next hedonic reward that I can find. There is little reflection, and I find it hard to step back and think about what I am doing. The effect of this is increased when I am sleep deprived, or haven’t eaten in a while.
From the inside this feels very similar to hunger. There is an internal need to do something rewarding, and I mostly just execute a local search in my immediate environment to get that reward, which usually means visiting Facebook, going on Steam and scrolling through new video games or going on Youtube and clicking on random videos.
But I prefer the concept of momentum over how I’ve been thinking about this. It seems to capture more of the important attributes of the phenomenon, and seems a bit more general.
I’ve been thinking about a related concept that I’ve been calling “feeling hedonic”. There is a certain state that I get into after surfing on Facebook or playing video games where my behavior seems to be reasonably well-described by me just seeking out the immediate next hedonic reward that I can find. There is little reflection, and I find it hard to step back and think about what I am doing. The effect of this is increased when I am sleep deprived, or haven’t eaten in a while.
From the inside this feels very similar to hunger. There is an internal need to do something rewarding, and I mostly just execute a local search in my immediate environment to get that reward, which usually means visiting Facebook, going on Steam and scrolling through new video games or going on Youtube and clicking on random videos.
But I prefer the concept of momentum over how I’ve been thinking about this. It seems to capture more of the important attributes of the phenomenon, and seems a bit more general.