Most Americans Are Semi-Conscious

Most Americans spend a large amount of time in a semi-conscious state every day. You are probably one of them.

Consciousness is one of humanity's greatest mysteries. At its simplest, consciousness is the sentience or awareness of internal or external existence.[1] Philosophers and scientists cannot agree on a well-articulated description of consciousness. But most would accept that it is an emergent property of the mind that enables us to deal with threats and successfully interact with our physical and social environment.

For a human to be conscious, he or she must have a functioning brain, and in addition, senses that provide information about the environment, the ability to detect efforts that conceal the reality of the environment, be able to sense things in the presence of phenomena that impair the functioning of his senses, and the ability to deal rationally with the information presented.

If an individual’s brain suffers serious damage, he or she may live in a vegetative or unconscious state. Less severe damage may lead to semi-conscious states. When most individuals think about people who have lost some or all of their consciousness, they tend to associate it with brain damage. Fortunately, most Americans who are afflicted with “every day semi-consciousness” have no brain damage. Their journeys into semi-consciousness result from the other issues associated with consciousness mentioned above such as the impairment of their senses.

Also, consciousness is a relative term. None of us can be fully conscious of our physical and social environment. We lack the physical capacity to do so. Our brains are designed to make us focus on the most urgent threat or important task at hand and when we do that, we lose the ability to pay attention to other things going on around us. So, we are semi-conscious all of the time in the sense that we cannot know everything that is going on around us.

Semi-Consciousness and Virtual Space

But when we use the term semi-conscious, we use it to imply that an individual lacks the capacity to successfully function physically and socially in environments that are important to his physical, emotional, and social well being.

The reasons why so many of us find ourselves in semi-conscious states today have primarily to do with virtual space and the tools of the information age.

When we venture into virtual space, our senses are severely impaired. You cannot be conscious of what you cannot sense. The senses of taste, smell, and touch are non-existent in virtual space. Our senses of hearing and sight are severely impaired. We do not see the whole environment, only the portion that is selectively presented on the screen. We only hear the things the controllers of the virtual environment enable us to hear. Our sixth sense, the vestibular system, that enables us to sense rotational and translational movement that provides us with a sense of balance and spatial orientation tends to malfunction when we wear virtual headsets causing some to get motion sickness.

Virtual space is a managed environment loaded with inaccurate information and fake news deliberately designed to mislead us. The goal of the controllers is to create artificial environments that we perceive to be reality. The polarizing effects of virtual space bias our brains to deal with situations based on emotion rather than factual reality.

Even in the seemingly most benign virtual situations, we are semi-conscious. In Zoom meetings, our physical senses are severely impaired. There are numerous distractions that impair the functioning of our visual and auditory senses. When you are staring at a 25 person Gallery View, it is almost impossible to maintain eye contact and read facial expressions, you obviously don’t sense the background chatter when someone makes a comment to the person sitting next to them, and it is extremely difficult to sense the mood of the room.

In virtual space, all of us are semi-conscious to varying degrees that range all the way from being unable to sense the mood of the room on a Zoom call to developing a distorted sense of reality created through interactions on social media.

Often states of semi-consciousness are a result of the addictive properties of virtual environments, social networks, and smart devices. Many of us lose touch with what is going on around us because we cannot put down our phones and cannot sleep without them. You cannot have meaningful interactions with friends and family around a dinner table if you are attending a business meeting halfway around the world. You cannot safely operate an automobile unless both hands are on the wheel and both eyes are on the road. A distracted mind is semi-conscious.

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Exploring the Results of Semi-Conscious States

The important question is, does semi-consciousness matter? I would argue that it is extremely important to understand when we are in a semi-conscious state and to manage our exposures to the environments that cause that state. Among the most important reasons that semi-consciousness is bad for your mental and physical health is that it enables the controllers of the internet to control your behavior and distort your perception of reality, interfering with your ability to make rational decisions.

One study found that heavy users of social media were three times more likely to be depressed than occasional users.[2] Semi-conscious passive users end up believing the real world is populated with people who portray themselves on social media and their lives in an unrealistically flattering manner, sharing heavily sanitized and filtered versions of reality leading to feelings of inadequacy. Virtual space distorts consciousness.

A conscious person in physical space knows they stack up pretty well but that same semi-conscious person in distorted virtual space concludes they are a failure.

When heavy users lose consciousness in virtual space, it has adverse effects on their physical health. Some spend so much time staring at their small screens they experience headaches, migraines, and develop vision problems. Their semi-conscious state even interferes with their attempts to lose consciousness. They experience trouble sleeping.

In a semi-conscious state in virtual space, we lose control over our behavior. We mislabel the process as competing for our attention. What is really going on is companies are monitoring our behavior, location, emotions, and using our genetically designed reward-seeking behavior to get us to spend time on social media, engaging with virtual groups that may get us a great bridge partner or get us to carry a loaded weapon to a protest march.

Shopping addicts and anorexics often find themselves in semi-conscious states in virtual space. Online shopping addiction is an increasing problem afflicting a few percent of online shoppers. The combination of low prices, anytime availability, and engaging augmented and virtual reality experiences increases buying cravings causing consumers to run into debt, leading to anxiety and depression.[3] Anorexics end up at pro-anorexia websites to counter feelings of loneliness, find tips on how to disguise their behavior, and convince themselves they do not have a problem.[4]

Since we are more conscious of things in physical space, it is more difficult to escape these realities. Being semi-conscious in virtual space reduces the difficulty.

Remaining Vigilant While in Virtual Space

Virtual space can be a wonderful and enriching environment. It can provide great pleasure, convenience, and make us more efficient and productive. In fact, I spend a lot of time there. But it should always be approached with caution. Since I know I will be semi-conscious when I venture there, I continually ask myself what I am missing.

I would encourage everyone to continually evaluate their semi-conscious state in virtual space. Doing that will accomplish two things. It will make you a more valued and better participant in virtual communities. More importantly, it will enable you to leverage virtual space to improve your life in physical space. It will improve your life with your family, your children, friends, and in the community in which you live. Surprisingly, many of the afflictions brought on by virtual space manifest themselves in physical space, anxiety, depression, lack of maturity, and extremist behavior. By understanding the problems of semi-consciousness, you will be better able to deal with those problems as well.

There are big benefits to knowing when you are semi-conscious.