19-07-2025
How superstimuli like porn and junk food flood our brains with dopamine but don't bring lasting satisfaction
Superstimuli such as processed food, pornography and social media may be giving us too much of a good thing
In Super Stimulated, Danish science writer Nicklas Brendborg successfully answers an unsettling question – why are many of us fatter, unhappier, and having less sex than our forefathers, despite today's world of unprecedented convenience?
Brendborg says it's because our basic instincts can be tricked and he opens with an example from nature. In the 1950s, Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen discovered an oystercatcher bird will ignore her eggs to sit on fake, oversized, bright blue ones. The exaggerated features confuse her natural inclination to nurture her bigger eggs. Humans, Brendborg argues, are no different.
