“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity. I enjoy drawing my webcomic, and it only takes me a couple hours to do each one, but I haven’t the patience to do more than one page a week—not because I don’t enjoy it, but because my brain resists too much of the same thing spaced together too closely. Conversely, I don’t think I could be said to “enjoy” some of the pointless Flash games that have eaten entire days of my life singlehandedly, but I went on playing them anyway.
“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity.
And this superficially unintuitive observation has been studied right down to the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Crudely speaking it is the difference between the opiod dopaminergic systems. (Flash games and amphetamines both come down in the ‘dopamine’ category.)
Similar to the recent result that Wireheading in rats causes frenzied desire, rather than actual bliss? (source: a lecture David Pearce gave this May).
“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity. I enjoy drawing my webcomic, and it only takes me a couple hours to do each one, but I haven’t the patience to do more than one page a week—not because I don’t enjoy it, but because my brain resists too much of the same thing spaced together too closely. Conversely, I don’t think I could be said to “enjoy” some of the pointless Flash games that have eaten entire days of my life singlehandedly, but I went on playing them anyway.
And this superficially unintuitive observation has been studied right down to the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Crudely speaking it is the difference between the opiod dopaminergic systems. (Flash games and amphetamines both come down in the ‘dopamine’ category.)
Similar to the recent result that Wireheading in rats causes frenzied desire, rather than actual bliss? (source: a lecture David Pearce gave this May).
Yes, exactly that kind of thing.