A man's happiness lies on this "fishing rod"!

✎ Which of the following is the most popular sport among young people nowadays?

1. Basketball 2. Running 3. Fishing

Anyway, before I saw the answer, I didn’t think it was fishing.

The 2020 Tik Tok Data Report shows that fishing is the favorite leisure sport for users on the platform, with related videos receiving over 800 million likes. Data disclosed by Tmall shows that 2 million people born after 1995 buy fishing products every year, with a consumption growth rate far exceeding that of other sports such as ball games, swimming, and cycling.

We became aware of the problem of young people being addicted to fishing because we came across this person one day.

We found the data of this amazing person on a data platform: his followers increased by more than 15 million in 90 days. We compared it with our own...

Forget it.

We were surprised to find that the majority of this fishing master's fans are young people aged 25-35, that is, those born in the 1980s and 1990s. So some people even say, "Young people nowadays are either lying down or fishing."

Why are today's young people addicted to such Buddhist activities? Is this the degeneration of youth or the sadness of the times?

Today at the Visual Research Institute, we want to find out why contemporary young people are addicted to fishing.

When we become curious about the question of fishing, the door to a new world slowly opens.

First, let’s look at the human diversity of fishing. You can fish in toilets, sewers, or in traffic jams on highways. As long as there is water, you can fish. In the words of a fisherman, you have to cast a rod even if you cross the Naihe Bridge.

Then there are all kinds of professional jargon. For example, there are traditional fishing, platform fishing, and lure fishing. There are wild fishing and black pit fishing. Throwing bait into the water to attract fish is called making a nest. A nest without fish is called a dead nest. A nest full of small fish is called a noisy nest. There are also people making nests and making nests with mobile phones.

There are also crazy pulling, explosive protection, and air force. If you understand these professional terms in seconds, you are welcome to type the answers in the barrage.

Of course, what we are going to study today is not these, but why young people are addicted to fishing.

A common explanation is that fishing may be a hunting instinct.

The excitement of this long-term planning, waiting, and competing with the prey, and finally subduing the opponent and harvesting food, is exactly the same as the feeling of hunting for men in ancient times. This may explain why fishermen are mainly men.

But what does this have to do with addiction?

So far, addiction to fishing has not been listed as a mental illness. Therefore, it is highly likely that there will not be institutions like fishing addiction schools that would allow Teacher Yang Yongxin to make use of his remaining energy in his later years.

But based on the performance and confessions of anglers, fishing is indeed addictive, so we looked for research on fishing and addiction.

In 2019, two psychology PhDs from Nottingham Trent University in the UK conducted research on fishing addiction in the Archives of Behavioral Addictions.

They found that fishing and gambling addiction have a very similar connection.

Here are a few typical commonalities:

• Repetitive behavior: Repeating the same behavior over and over at the same time in the hope of gaining something of material value. Once successful, it brings a great sense of accomplishment and mastery.

•Emotional regulation: Bring a sense of comfort and relaxation.

•Escape trait: It makes people forget about time and participate in activities for much longer than initially expected. What was supposed to be an hour of fun may have gone by before they knew it.

•Skill + Opportunity: It is a combination of skill and opportunity, but I cannot distinguish between skill and opportunity. Is it my strategy that is right or is it just luck?

• Availability bias: People are more willing to remember a few big wins, while most of the "nothings" are selectively forgotten. It's worth it to win a big one.

•Withdrawal reaction: Once you stop this activity, you will feel uncomfortable all over, easily become sulky, moody, and even have physical symptoms.

In short, the similarities between fishing and gambling allow us to perhaps draw an equal sign between fishing addiction and gambling addiction, or at least an approximate equal sign. Gambling is as attractive to gamblers as casting a fishing rod is to fishermen .

Moreover, fishing may not only have a similar psychological mechanism to gambling, but it can also increase people's sense of happiness.

There is a paper in the journal Human Ecology Review, the title of which is something like: "Happiness, Well-being and Psychocultural Adaptation to the Stresses Associated with Marine Fishing"? It's a bit difficult to pronounce. Never mind, let's look at the content.

It studies why fishermen are attached to the fishing industry and are unwilling to give up their profession even when the economic returns are insufficient.

The researchers established a complex model, which we will not elaborate on here. Let me just state the conclusion: the relative danger and uncertainty of fishing brings about a psychological stimulation that has a positive impact on the fishermen's sense of happiness.

This psychological mechanism will especially attract "active, adventurous, aggressive and brave personality types". Although the frequency of this personality type in the population has slowly decreased as humans no longer rely mainly on hunting to survive, it still exists. If this type of personality cannot be satisfied through fishing, then they will look for alternatives. The good ones will do high-risk jobs such as firefighting, policing, stock and futures trading, or like high-risk sports such as wing suit flying, rock climbing, skiing, etc. The bad ones are prone to gambling addiction, even crime and drug abuse.

Therefore, some scholars believe that fishing is a "positive addiction". Bill Glasser said that "positively indulging" in activities such as jogging, meditation, and fishing can keep people away from negativity and enhance their sense of self-efficacy.

Another experiment even found that fishing can relieve pain: three researchers from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest used VR technology to play fishing games in virtual reality to attract patients' deep attention, which can effectively relieve pain and can partially replace opioid painkillers.

So, if your partner or family member is addicted to fishing, please calm down before throwing out the fishing rod. After all, compared to gambling, fishing is not illegal.

Above we have found the answer to whether fishing is really that addictive, so we still have one last question...

Why is fishing, a way for middle-aged people to escape the stress of life, attracting more and more young people?

In the past, we believed that middle-aged people began to suffer from impotence and baldness, and they became indifferent to fame and fortune, and found long-lost excitement and a safe haven in fishing. A statistical survey on the motivations of anglers showed that anglers most wanted to change their daily work and life rhythm and relieve stress through fishing.

Then perhaps we can speculate that the contemporary young people's addiction to fishing is one of the signs of this generation's early middle-aging.

In the past, people in their 40s and 50s, who had elderly parents and young children to support, and were unable to retire, were at the peak of stress in their lives. But now, when the workplace regards 35 as the deadline for eliminating waste, middle age has come to young people too early. They can't afford to buy a house, play football, or have a relationship, and playing games too much is boring. Young people in their 20s have not had time to see the future clearly, but have already experienced the high pressure of middle-aged people who can't move forward or retreat, no one cares about them, and the burden on their shoulders is getting heavier and heavier.

So, the young man, with nowhere to escape, ordered a fishing rod and headed for the rivers, lakes and seas.

When fishing in person is no longer a luxury for some young people, they can still fish on video platforms through "cloud fishing" and relieve themselves by watching others relieve stress. It's like when young people don't have time to eat well or live alone, watching others eat on their mobile phones can help them quench their thirst and soothe their lonely and boring souls. Eating broadcasts have also relied on this spiritual massage function to stand at the forefront of the self-media industry in the past two years. It's just that the situation has changed, and now it's the turn of fishing. In fact, behind them are a large number of confused and lonely young people.

They were laughing and having fun on the video platform, but in fact, each of them was fishing alone in the snow on the cold river.

References:

[1]Becoming hooked? Angling, gambling, and “fishing addiction” , Archives of Behavioral Addictions, 2019-1

[2] Happiness, Well-being and Psychocultural Adaptation to the Stresses Associated with Marine Fishing, Human Ecology Review, 2008

[3]Angling in Virtual Reality for Pain Relief, E-Health and Bioengineering Conference (EHB), 2019-11

[4] "Guyu Data: How crazy can middle-aged people go fishing? They carpooled 50 kilometers for two days and one night just to go fishing"

[5] 2020 Taobao Fishing Industry Consumer Insight Report

[6] “2019 Tmall Outdoor Sports Trend Analysis”

[7] 2020 TikTok Data Report

[8] “When Generation Z falls in love with fishing: The landscape of the 100 billion yuan leisure fishery industry is quietly changing”, Zhoutian Finance, 2021-6

[9] "10 million followers in one month, 1.25 million in sales in a single live broadcast! Is fishing for middle-aged men so good? New List Interview", Phoenix News, June 2021

Source: Vision