The IFS study found that 47% of men aged 18-29 who play video games daily also reported feeling like a failure—as opposed to 32% of men who played video games less than daily.

Meaning, there is at least a correlation between playing video games on a daily basis and feeling like a failure more often.

In fact, the data found the same general pattern across most forms of media engagement: online gambling, stock trading, watching porn, engaging in fantasy sports, streaming videos, and using social media.

When young men engaged with any/all of these daily, they were more likely to self-report feeling like a failure than if they engaged less than daily. (The only exception to this rule was messaging/texting, which showed no meaningful increase of failure-feelings with daily use.)

But here’s where things took an unexpected turn.

The data also often found that those who never engage with a particular form of media might still report feeling like a failure—and sometimes even at a higher rate than those who engaged “less than daily.”

For example, 42% of men who never play video games described feeling this way, compared to only 32% who play less than daily.

In other words, there’s something slightly more complicated going on here than just “less media = feeling better about ourselves.”

But what is it?

Everyone has an outlet—something that’s enjoyable and that helps us relieve stress.

Video games can be an outlet.
Streaming videos can be an outlet.
Playing fantasy sports can be an outlet.

But when occasional use turns into compulsive use, those initial psychological benefits go away.

Most young men want to feel like they’re accomplishing something, and these various forms of media can simulate that feeling. And video games in particular can be part of healthy social interactions.

But here’s the problem: modern media is so engaging, so well-designed, and so effective at playing into our base desires that it’s easy for engagement with it to become something that consumes more and more of our lives.

So we need to develop self-control.

In their book Boundaries, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend argue that, "…all of psychological research affirm an important reality about healthy, fulfilled, happy people: they have something called “self-control.”

Without self-control, the very same outlets that could have been healthy and enjoyable turn into net negatives for our mental health.

Now, it’s also worth saying that just because something is engaged with “less than daily,” that doesn’t automatically mean it’s healthy or good. I would put porn use squarely in this category. But porn is also an example of how even attempts at occasional use can easily turn into daily use, because of the overwhelming amount of stimulation the content tends to involve. (If you or someone you know could use help with this topic, I encourage you to check out The Freedom Fight online.)

The same thing is often true of social media platforms and sports betting apps that are run by companies with engagement goals that incentivize them to try to override your willpower.

In short: sometimes self-control means learning how to practice moderation. Other times it means having the courage to avoid something altogether.

Now, maybe self-control starts with environment-control. Maybe you realize that a particular form of media is so tempting for you that you can’t trust yourself to withstand temptation. So you purposefully disable certain features or get rid of certain devices.

This creates space for your “self” to become stronger, and more integrated. It helps us get to a point where we can consciously decide whether we even want to engage with a particular form of media, instead of gliding into regular use by impulse.

Self-control is arguably the definitive skill required to engage with modern media, and it can be the difference between a life of balance and confidence, and a life of compulsion and distraction.

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