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A friend recently sent me Get a video about Red Dead Redemption 2 Run on an old CRT television By YouTuber Elke Austin, which I clearly viewed because I love gimmicky Tech videos with outdated things. I expected to laugh at something that used retro and current technology, and that happened, but then the video wandered to human psychology.
I thought it would be ridiculous to play a modern game on such an old TV, especially because it is. But after playing a bit, he realized that once you get used to it, a modern game plays on a TV that has been outdated for decades … just does not feel so different. Of course, there were annoyances – certainly things off the screen – but for the most part the game was just as compelling and fun on an old TV as on a contemporary.
“The human brain is simply very good at normalizing in principle everything that does not let us die immediately,” explains Elke Austin in the video. “Your brand new PC probably gives you about the same amount of joy as your old PC. Your big fancy new job probably feels about the same as your old job, provided that you have control over other factors such as money. ”
That … cannot be how human brains work. Is it possible? I decided to look at psychology. (Spoiler: It is exactly how human brains work.)
The Hedonic treadmill
The psychological phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill Has been well documented since at least the 1970s. The concept refers to how people tend to return to a basic level of happiness after positive or negative changes in their lives. There may be a peak in happiness after a wedding, a promotion at work or buying a new TV, but that is temporary – people tend to eventually return to their previous levels of happiness. The same applies to negative changes in life.
An early study that shows this, Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology In 1978 the relative happiness of three groups investigated: lottery winners, people who have experienced serious car accidents and a control group. The results of the lottery winners were surprising:
Lottery winners and checks were not significantly different in their assessments of how happy they were now, how happy they were before they won (or, for checks, how happy they were 6 months ago), and how happy they expected to be in a few years.
Now there was nuance in the study. The victims of Auto -accident have not adapted to the same extent, although the study notes that “the victims of the accident did not seem as unhappy as could have been expected.” Nevertheless, the Hedonic treadmill has been replicated in the course of the years after study. Positive and negative changes usually have a major impact on our levels of happiness in the short term, but over time we return to our basic levels of happiness.
What does this have to do with playing Red Dead Redemption On an old TV? The same psychological tendency is in the game. If you have bought the TV from your dreams tomorrow, there can be a honeymoon in which you feel that it makes your video game experience better, and that can make you happier.
After that period, however, you will return immediately to the same level of satisfaction as before. In the end you may hear about a newer, better TV that you now want to buy to get the same lucky boost you got by buying the last. That is why this is called a treadmill: you think that the next purchase will stimulate your happiness permanently to end up only where you started.
How you can get rid of the treadmill
If we know this, how can we get more satisfaction from our gadgets? The answer can spend more time thinking about how much you enjoy the things you already have. An article from 2011 by Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky Published in the Personality and Social Psychology BulletinShown that regularly thinking about the positive changes in your life – and less thinking about hypothetical future changes – help maintain the increase in happiness. Of the conclusion:
In other words, because of the highly adjustment processes that were investigated in the current study, the attraction of the new car, the house or the handbag that initially brought fun starts, so that people are quickly tempted to buy an even better car, house or handbag, who try to regain the initial excitement that is missing. In a world of expanding debts, decreasing resources and questionable sustainability, it seems necessary to arrest or minimize this process, so that people can learn to be satisfied with less. Our study suggests that this is a feasible goal, realizable when people make efforts to be grateful for what they have and to continue to communicate with it in various, surprising and creative ways.
The details of appreciating changes in creative ways are not laid out, but I think the video from Austin ends with a reasonably good one: occasionally switch your current technology for something old and then switch back to modern tech.
Hear me about this: here is what you have to do. Buy two TVs: a small 720p and then a larger 1080p. Every time you get the Hanking for something new, you simply switch back and forth between them. From the big one to the little one will feel cute and new and cozy, and then the little one to the big we feel like this huge compelling upgrade.
I am far from a psychology expert and I think every Austin would admit the same thing. Given the hedonistic upgrade, this does not sound like the worst idea – you could in theory give yourself that little happiness to regularly try something new. You pull yourself to appreciate the thing you already have instead of considering how much better life would be if you had something even better.
However, you do not have to go to this extreme. Just know that the research suggests that you are happier with your technology if you spend more time appreciating what you have and dreaming less about what you could buy instead.