I have a particular problem that I like to refer to as Mental Masturbation.
Mental Masturbation: consuming information under the pretense of wanting to learn something useful, but in reality I’m “getting myself off” by indulging in subjects I’m already well-versed in.
A personal example:
- I’ve read more than a dozen books on nutrition and used them to create the healthiest diet that works for me. Despite having diminished marginal returns with additional nutrition books, my brain wants to read more. It tries to convince me that there could be significant increases in health just around the corner. In reality, my mind is rationalizing staying inside my intellectual comfort zone.
The psychology driving Mental Masturbation
This concept can be better understood with how authors Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler define reasons and motives in their book The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.
Reasons: the verbal explanations we give to account for our behavior
Motives: the underlying causes of our behavior, whether we’re conscious of them or not
Here’s an example using their definitions:
Reason: John tells himself he uses TikTok to learn new things.
Motive: His brain found a way to justify digital dopamine hits. As I mentioned in a previous post: the addicted mind will find a way to rationalize continued use at all costs.
Why do we do this in the first place?
As Scott Galloway states in his book The Four:
Over-collecting [for our ancestors] was a smart strategy. The only downside of too much stuff was wasted effort. [Whereas] the downside of under-collecting was death from starvation.
The behavior of over-collecting resources and information, however, is rendered counterproductive in our modern age of abundance.
How to use the concept of Mental Masturbation to prevent wasting time
Having already read 200+ books as an adult, the ROI is bad and getting worse. While deliberating checking out a book (which is a ~5-hour commitment) from the library, I ask: what specific problem am I having in my life right now that could be solved by this book? If a good enough rationale does not present itself beyond “it seems interesting”, then I label it as Mental Masturbation and skip it.[1]
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. — Einstein
Applying the concept of Mental Masturbation, I reduced my reading list from 50 non-fiction books to just five, thereby saving 225 hours.[2] With the extra time, I write LessWrong posts using what I’ve learned. Writing helps solidify my thinking on certain topics, rather than continuing to pump more information into my already overloaded brain.
This is not about denying myself pleasure—I love to unwind at night by reading fiction. But if I want to accomplish anything significant in my lifetime, then I must be selective in what I choose to consume in the name of “learning”, lest I delude myself into being endlessly distracted by information that could be useful in the future…