At some point today you will disengage from the rest of the world and just think. It could happen any number of ways: if your mind wanders from work, while you’re sitting in traffic, or if you just take a quiet moment to reflect. But as frequently as we drift into our own thoughts, a new study suggests that many of us don’t like it. In fact, some people even prefer an electric shock to being left alone with their minds.
“I’m really excited to see this paper,” says Matthew Killingsworth, a psychologist at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, who says his own work has turned up a similar result. “When people are spending time inside their heads, they’re markedly less happy.”
The researchers then decided to take the experiment a step further. For 15 minutes, the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to. The results were startling: Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think, the team reports online today in Science.
What a ridiculous conclusion. You leave people alone wondering how it feels to be electrocuted and then conclude that they can’t stand their own thoughts when they decide to try it.
Yeah, this was a baseless finding. I’m an introvert. I LOVE being left alone with my thoughts. My daughter is the same way. Shes not lonely, she’s quite happy being by herself.
I’m not locked in with my thoughts. My thoughts are locked in with ME!
Right? All this proves is people will try anything once.
I mean, if I was left alone in a room with a button, I would press it too (maybe more than once https://xkcd.com/242/ )
Reminds me of the meme where a girl noted she no longer allows men to hold her stun gun because 100% of the time they shock themselves to see if they can take it.
“I wonder if…”
bzzzzzt
You’ve failed
“but…”
I wonder how age factors in. Being alone with your thoughts is something that probably becomes more comfortable the more you practice it. In the modern age, though, nobody actually has to practice it when they can just pull out their phone. Anyone who grew up in pre-smartphone times has encountered countless times where they had no choice, though, usually you’re waiting for something or another, so you just sit there and wait. And think. Gets you rather used to it.
Stupid. It’s called “curiosity”. End study.
“Today we figure out why slaves choose to disassociate”
Fuck that!
stanley milgram liked this.
Without the pain how can we know we are alive? I wonder if the results would be lower had they given them a hug before leaving them alone with the button.
