A cognitive-resource inspired take on the dopamine reward system for fast and complex media
Scrolling through reels, TikToks, or any other short-form media is exhausting in a way that is different from physical exhaustion. Many people would say that it fries the dopamine reward-loop, risking our attention span, but there may be a richer frying going on.
The dopamine reward-loop is a biological system that involves dopamine neurotransmitters, one that anticipates rewards and motivates people to take certain actions. The importance of this system includes not only influencing the foresight of long-term planning, but also the motivation of everyday movements and learning. Most prominent scientific explanations of this complex system are model-free: given any behaviour, the brain predicts some reward before receiving the actual reward signal. By minimizing this prediction error, people know what to do and what not to do; this is what people refer to as the reward ‘loop.’ However, notice how this explanation does not describe or model the contents of these actions and rewards. For this reason, they are called model-free.
The model-free explanation works well in science to examine some well-defined relationship, but seems too medical for how we tend to imagine things in the world. When keeping the learning procedure simple and consistent, scientists may prefer the model-free approach to observe factors associated with learning, such as variations in biological levels (e.g. the duration of a rat’s freezing in response to trials of receiving shocks).
However, it is hard to imagine how a model-free approach could describe the complex gratification associated with finding humour in an absurdly ironic video. For example, watching a low quality reel of a seemingly bittersweet Chinese drama, and correctly anticipating an abrupt 6-7, or low-taper-fade, jumpcut.
Another branch of theoretical explanations about the reward-loop attempts to represent precisely what is being learned. Model-based explanations can be as simple as describing some action leading to some reward signal, or, they can be much more complex, describing a combination of causes that can lead to different outcomes. Model-based explanations assume that the brain does not just care about the error between prediction and outcome, but also about representing situations. Scientists prefer model-based explanations when the context significantly influences how we respond: when the brain selects different actions based on the specific situation, rather than following a fixed pattern. Both approaches describe learning in different levels of the mind, but I want to focus on model-based explanations to describe the mental process of representing outcomes during short-form content consumption.
Assuming that people do anticipate certain outcomes as they’re watching reels, and that this requires modelling situations in the reel, the brain needs to allocate resources to build these models. The slightest interest in a super choppy brainrot reel will prompt anticipation of its multitude of potential outcomes. Anticipation of any sort of outcome requires incorporating relevant factors into a model. This easily decomposes into processes like lexical retrieval, decision-making, and structural learning, which have costs that have been shown to strain the brain’s resources.
Building models involves similar processes to the ones involved in the comprehension of any story. This includes media consumers representing stories while watching movies, playing video games, and reading books. Similar processes are foundational for building stories while writing essays, making art, and planning future actions. Decision-making mentally carves out possible models which need to be built. Some decisions involve far more factors than others, and feel exhausting after producing.
Many small decisions also pile up in daily life, causing weariness, which is why a common adage exists that it’s preferable to pick out clothes the night before to save on decision-making the next day. Of course, watching one reel is less exhausting than putting together a theatrical outfit, as none of the outcomes require personal creativity, but, to understand what is happening for consumption or creation, we need to mentally model what has taken place before.
A big problem is that stories in a reel are rapid. Every good reel is like a hero’s journey packed into thirty seconds, and they’re most satisfying that way; you can quickly learn which type of videos are the most rewarding to watch. However, mental muscles get tired after building a thousand models, no matter how small. The problem is that more models are necessary throughout the day: writing papers, understanding movies, and living quotidian life. Watching reels doesn’t just fry the dopamine-loop: it fries everyday creativity. For example, focus might be misplaced into navigating a tome of meme knowledge to solve a minute-long mystery (e.g. a wary user deciphering an Instagram video’s comment section to figure out whether it was meant for a general audience or an audience of degenerates, i.e. a goon reel, in order to figure out how the content delivery system, Instagram, perceives the user). Depending on who you are, this may not be what you want to focus your energy on.
It might be preferable to opt for less draining activities to relax. Some advise that during work breaks, doing chores instead of scrolling is better, as scrolling disrupts the previous workflow. This is speculative, however, and perhaps the reason why doing chores does not interrupt workflow is because doing chores is mundane and does not require creating new models. Instead, work is progressed while capitalizing off of previously learned models. Habitual activities thereby conserve mental energy, while consuming short-form media clutters the mental workspace.
Despite being a small time commitment, reels can take more from us in the long-run than long-form media by sapping our ability to represent complex situations much quicker. Scrolling reels is not a cost-efficient relaxing activity when compared to doing menial activities like the dishes or even consuming long-form media. In fact, scrolling through reels can be all the more exhausting.