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Notes -
I’m not convinced it needs to be literal fighting. As a species, we’re rapidly retreating from the real world into very different cyber-simulacra of various aspects of our former life. We probably do at least half of our human contact through screens. We play games rather than going outside for real activities. And I think the simulacra, while they give the a bit more of happy brain chemicals as the real thing, they’re not the same. An online friend is not a real friend. An online game is not the same as playing outdoors. Watching videos of places is not the same as visiting those places.
I think a lot of this stuff ends up being a hyperstimulous. They’re releasing more of those happy brain chemicals than the real life version because they’ve removed most of the slower more boring but actually meaningful bits of those things. Your online friends are always there, just whip out the phone and scroll. And they don’t make demands like an offline friend might, nor do they get in bad moods or get mad at you. An offline walk is mostly quiet maybe interesting flowers or birds or a deer or something. Walk around in a video game and you’ll have constant adventures. So the online world wins, and people don’t do as much offline.
I think just about any real world experience that comes along will help. The kids who seem the most mentally stable are athletes who are spending lots of time playing a sport with their actual body, seeing the gradual improvement as they practice and work out, growing into social relationships as they make real world friends on their team and gain tge confidence to talk to people outside of that group. Sports of any type but especially team sports is really good for kids and especially boys.
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