Why can't I directly modify a component's state, really?

Question

I understand that React tutorials and documentation warn in no uncertain terms that state should not be directly mutated and that everything should go through setState

Answer 1

To avoid every time to create a copy of this.state.element you can use update with $set or $push or many others from immutability-helper

e.g.:

import update from 'immutability-helper';

const newData = update(myData, {
  x: {y: {z: {$set: 7}}},
  a: {b: {$push: [9]}}
});