From our youngest ages, we spend vast amounts of time mentally immersing ourselves in fantasy worlds – in the form of daydreaming, reading, TV series, commercials, game consoles, pornography, and other ways that keep us out of the present reality. We spend about 50% of our time being mentally concerned with the non-present. One of the most obvious use of such escapes is to reduce stress and fatigue, by taking a break from other demanding tasks. Moreover, we may be able to conjure up novel (associative) ideas from this more relaxed position. It also helps with fostering better interpersonal and romantic relations, and driving our motivation for change. Of course, there are potential downsides, particularly if the time spent in the fantasy world starts to interfere with regular life, or affects it negatively otherwise. The latter point is often associated with a blending of the fantasy world and the real world. For example, that spending time playing video games causes people to become more violent in real life as well.
There are, indeed, examples of ways in which fantasy worlds have negative effects in the real world. For example, copy-cat suicides reputedly carried out by readers of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. It seems not entirely far-fetched that people already leaning towards a certain behavior can be pushed further into this behavior by being immersed in a fantasy that features or even glamorizes it. And one study indeed found a 30% increase of suicides among teenagers after the release of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. On the other hand, another study found no evidence for such “suicide contagion by fictional media”. This makes it clear that, although fantasy worlds may have an impact on behavior, the impact may only be relatively weak.
So, what is evidence for other negative effects of fantasy? For video games: “an extensive game intervention over the course of 2 months did not reveal any specific changes in aggression, empathy, interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs, depressivity, anxiety or executive control functions; neither in comparison to an active control group that played a non-violent video game nor to a passive control group.” For pornography: “Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level.” See also this BBC Futures roundup that shows there is not effectively any proof that pornography can be strongly linked to anything.
Overall, I believe that fantasy is a much more innocent activity than it’s often made out to be. I played Carmageddon 2 when I was young, but was never driven to violence. I think, because we spend so much time in our lives immersed in fantasy worlds (and even night-time dreams!), that we have gotten very expert when it comes to separating fantasies from realities. Spending time in our fantasy world can be a healthy outlet for otherwise had urges, can provide new perspectives, can calm ourselves, and is not strongly shown to be related to any negative consequences. Finally, then, one might consider time spent reading, watching TV, playing video games, etc., as a waste of time. That could be a final negative component. But I beg to differ. For example, I am a big fan of watching TV series with my girlfriend. We can talk and discuss about the themes that we saw for ages, leading us into discussions we would never have had otherwise, with arguments based on the TV series, that we would never have thought about before. Fantasy enriches life.