Sofarisation

In the last few articles, I’ve spent some time describing the different groups that make up your society. I hope you can now see where you fit (or don’t fit) with a little bit more clarity. Maybe you’ve also got a feel for some of the problems you face being where you are.

But let’s move on. This article helps you look at some of the trends in society that also affect you. The first of these trends is something I’m going to call sofarisation.

If you look up the word “sofarisation” in a search engine, you may find your way to the Urban Dictionary entry, where my coaching company Juvenate coined the term back in 2014. Here’s how we defined it.

Sofarisation: The ability to spend an increasing amount of one’s life on the sofa, leading eventually to incapacity and other health-related problems. It affects both individuals and society as a whole.

Sofarisation is one of the problems I see becoming endemic in society today. Because sofarisation means you can do more and more of what you need to do without getting off your backside and leaving the sofa. And this leads to problems. Big problems. Sofarisation can also lead to believing that everything you want in life can be achieved without putting in any real effort.

Here’s a truth that nobody wants to hear. Sometimes in life, things aren’t really going to happen unless you get off your arse.

I’ve traced the origins of sofarisation back well over half a century, coincidentally to about the same time as the invention of the television set. In recent years, the increased prevalence of sofarisation can be further attributed to fast food, satellite and cable TV, and in the last few decades, the internet and smartphones.

Today you spend more and more of your time on the sofa in your own “virtual worlds,” glued to the TV, glued to your smartphone, and glued to other devices. But you need to be aware. Because as you spend more time on the sofa, the sofarisation mindset also takes a firmer grip on your life.

With cloud-based technologies and good online access, you can log in and work from almost anywhere. You can attend meetings over the internet. You can watch webcast presentations. Perhaps soon you’ll never really need to go to school, college, or the office. You could do whatever you need to do from the comfort of the sofa.

The internet means you can keep in touch with family and friends. You can “virtually” meet new people and even build relationships. You can message, video call, and stay connected. For some, sofarisation has enabled independence, reduced isolation, and provided freedom.

But here’s the paradox. Sofarisation, through that sedentary lifestyle and the inactivity it causes, can also lead to many health-related problems and social isolation as well.

Have you ever dreamed of reducing your 70-hour work week and doing a bit of work from home? Maybe doing the fabled four-hour work week that Tim Ferriss wrote about? But at what cost does this come? You need to ask yourself where you draw the line on the sofarisation of your life. What does replacing that time at the office with more time glued to your gadgets sitting at home really give you?

Health-wise, the problem with sofarisation is simple. While you sit on the sofa, you reduce your activity levels. The World Health Organization has been clear for years that being overweight or obese now contributes to more deaths worldwide than being underweight, and that the numbers affected keep climbing.

Let that sink in for a moment. More people are dying from eating too much than from eating too little.

The spear of the hunter-gatherer has been replaced with a TV remote and an app. Only last week, I hunted down a pizza simply by lifting up my phone. Your lives today can be far too comfortable. You, as humans, are not genetically designed for too much comfort, especially when an abundance of carbohydrate-rich food comes with the added bonus of inactivity.

But let’s not forget your mental health either. There are things in life you just need to do in the real world, in real life, to help your situation. Quite simply, there are things you need to get off your butt and actually do. There are things in life that are learned through experience, not from the internet.

The digital world has brought you lifetimes of information at your fingertips. For example, you can watch hundreds of videos on how to ride a bike. But that doesn’t teach you how to ride a bike in real life, does it? You can use this same analogy for many other things too.

The sofarisation mindset is compounded by being conditioned to think that everything in life can be found by the press of a button or by following a link online. But with this conditioning, you’re also in danger of losing touch with reality. If you’re spending too much time in the virtual world, no matter how fast your broadband is, it’s only in the real world that you can practically solve a lot of your real-life problems.

You can spend so much time searching, browsing, and watching, but very little time doing or really living that experience.

It gets worse. Instead of getting up off the sofa and solving your problems, you connect. You share. Sometimes you get lost wallowing in the problems of others. In forums and chat rooms, under the guise of “self-help,” you swap tales of failures and build a bubble of misinformation for others to get trapped in too.

The only thing worse than a person in a world of hurt sitting in a room with the walls closing in, thinking about all their problems, is spending the rest of their day communicating with other people telling them how bad their life is too.

Beware of the sofarisation mindset. Think about what you really need to do that you’re not doing now. Remember, there are things that you can only do in the real world.

Maybe I’ve stretched the sofarisation metaphor too far. I’ll admit that moving forward in life is not all about what you can and can’t do from the sofa. The important thing to remember is just that you probably need to get up off your arse to do the important things.

There are also things that take time. A search engine can find things before you even finish typing. Real life is just not that quick. There’s not always an instant fix to many of the problems you all face either.

So think about the results you want. Think about what you really will need to do to get there. Always bear in mind that this hub will give you some direction and understanding. But it’s not just reading about it. It’s about doing it too to get the results you want.

Let me give you some concrete examples of what the sofarisation mindset looks like in practice.

There’s the patient who comes in asking for medication for depression but won’t consider exercise, social activities, or any intervention that requires leaving the house. Everything must be solvable from the sofa. A pill. A prescription. Something that demands nothing from them.

There’s the person who’s gained several stone in the past year, ordering takeaways every night because cooking feels like too much effort. The sofa is comfortable. The food arrives at the door. Why would they do anything differently?

There’s the young adult who’s stopped attending university, telling themselves and everyone else it’s because they’ll learn everything online instead. Except they don’t. They’re on the sofa watching something, telling themselves they’ll start that online course tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. It’s always worth ruling out whether something more serious is going on before assuming this is simple avoidance — but a lot of the time, it genuinely is just the pull of the path of least resistance.

The sofarisation mindset convinces you that comfort is the goal. That anything requiring effort or discomfort should be avoided. That your problems can all be solved virtually, digitally, or through minimal intervention.

But here’s the reality. The big problems in life require you to show up. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. They require you to be uncomfortable. To struggle. To fail. To try again.

You can’t build real relationships entirely from the sofa. You can’t develop genuine skills entirely online. You can’t solve complex problems entirely through internet searches. You can’t build real confidence, real resilience, or real competence without getting up and doing the hard things in the real world.

The sofarisation mindset is seductive because it promises easy solutions. But what it delivers is stagnation. Isolation. Deteriorating physical and mental health. A life that’s comfortable but empty.

I say beware of sofarisation and the sofarisation mindset. Instead, rise up and do what you need to do.

This hub will give you understanding. Direction. Insight. But it won’t do the work for you. Reading about change isn’t the same as making change. Knowing what you should do isn’t the same as actually doing it.

You want real results? You’re going to have to get off the sofa.

Not just physically (though that’s important). But mentally. Emotionally. You’re going to have to stop hiding behind screens and actually engage with the world. With other people. With challenges. With discomfort.

The sofarisation mindset tells you that’s too hard. That you should wait for an easier option. That someone will eventually figure out a way for you to get what you want without all that effort.

I’m telling you the opposite. The things worth having in life require effort. They require you to be present. To show up. To do the work.

So rise up. Get off your arse. Do what needs to be done.

Because here’s the truth. Your life won’t change from the sofa. Your problems won’t solve themselves while you’re scrolling through social media. Your dreams won’t come true while you’re binge-watching another series.

Real change happens in the real world. And that requires you to leave the comfort of the sofa and actually live.

Further reading

• Ferriss, T. (2007). The 4-Hour Work Week. Crown.
• Levine, J. A. (2014). Get Up!: Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Carr, N. (2010). The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W. W. Norton.
• Ratey, J. J., & Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Little, Brown.
• World Health Organization. (2020). WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. WHO.