from the inward-eye-that-is-the-bliss-of-solitude dept.
People underestimate how enjoyable it is to sit and think:
People consistently underestimate how much they would enjoy spending time alone with their own thoughts, without anything to distract them, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
"Humans have a striking ability to immerse themselves in their own thinking," said study lead author Aya Hatano, PhD, of Kyoto University in Japan. "Our research suggests that individuals have difficulty appreciating just how engaging thinking can be. That could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy with devices and other distractions, rather than taking a moment for reflection and imagination in daily life."
The researchers found that people enjoyed spending time with their thoughts significantly more than they had predicted. [...]
These results are especially important in our modern era of information overload and constant access to distractions, according to study co-author Kou Murayama, PhD, of the University of Tübingen in Germany. "It's now extremely easy to 'kill time.' On the bus on your way to work, you can check your phone rather than immerse yourself in your internal free-floating thinking, because you predict thinking will be boring," he said. "However, if that prediction is inaccurate, you are missing an opportunity to positively engage yourself without relying on such stimulation."
That missed opportunity comes at a cost because previous studies have shown that spending time letting your mind wander has some benefits, according to the researchers. It can help people solve problems, enhance their creativity and even help them find meaning in life. "By actively avoiding thinking activities, people may miss these important benefits," Murayama said.
Journal Reference:
Aya Hatano, Cansu Ogulmus, Hiroaki Shigemasu, and Kou Murayama, Thinking About Thinking: People Underestimate How Enjoyable and Engaging Just Waiting Is [pdf], J Exp Psychol Gen, 2022. DOI: 10.1037/xge0001255
(Score: 5, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:04PM (9 children)
I think I have my first working hypothesis on what's happened to the country (and world) in the last couple decades. Do most people experience thinking as boring? I can see that, especially if it doesn't engage neurochemical reward pathways in an individual's brain.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:19PM
Or maybe it's actually unpleasant [youtu.be].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:21PM
That all depends on what they're thinking about! ;)
It's also different for those with mental health problems such as PTSD or severe anxiety where sitting alone with their thoughts can be stressful and unpleasant.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:44PM (1 child)
I do find it remarkable that if you pass an area where people are idling around, like a bus stop, easily 90% of the people are looking down at their phones. Large numbers are doing it even as they walk down the sidewalk.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @05:16PM
That's ridiculous. Who would be messing around with their phone while walking OWWWW!!!! I just rolled my ankle off a curb :-P
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:48PM
I'm not sure if they think that thinking is boring. It's just that the constantly entertaining device is more fun. Constantly feeding the users addiction. With the constant gamification of the devices with constant happy funny feedback perhaps one shouldn't be to surprised. It's why all those behavioral scientists, psychologists and neuroscientists work at the app and social media companies -- to keep the user hooked on the device. Clearly they are doing a "good" job in that regard.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:27PM
Man, i 'used to' (which means i still do, but in a less lecherous way, lol) 'waste time' by looking around at the women. Is pornhub so prolific nowadays that guys don't need to look at things that they find sexy anymore?
No wonder sperm counts are dropping: guys are spending too much time looking at tweets instead of t*ts and tw*ts. ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stormreaver on Sunday July 31 2022, @09:06PM (1 child)
I know a LOT of people who can't stand prolonged silences. I spent a large portion of my public school hours in my head for survival reasons in the 1980's. Public school was lethally useless, and a near total waste of my time. I learn more interesting and useful history (I love the Oversimplified series), math (Algebra, Trig., and Calc. teachers are orders of magnitude more effective), and science (Veritasium is awesome!) in one hour on YouTube than I learned in a month of public school.
Public school was enough to make me want to shed this Earthly coil, so I found myself drifting off into my own thoughts. Left to my own devices, I would find myself in a fascinating world of my own creation (no pictures, just concepts; I have always had aphantasia), only to be yanked out of it by the teacher or other students telling me to "snap out of it" or "wake up." Since then, I have always preferred the silence of my head over external stimuli.
However, our society is not conducive to internalization, so I can totally understand why people want to waste away in their smartphones and computers. They have too much to do in the "outside" world, with what little downtime they have not being enough to encourage the development of an "inside" world. But it is enough time to check in on the latest nonsense on social media, since most social media requires no expressive thought whatsoever.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @09:32PM
Actually, that was my hypothesis. Social media allows you to pick whoever you want, and delegate the cogitating to them, and just consume the results. It even allows you to delegate the selection of the people to do the thinking for you, to someone else.
So you just post stuff that looks like you did the difficult thinking and hard decisions, get people to look at your stuff, get them to spread the word to people who would rather delegate cogitation and opinions to others, and voila! Instant following, or possibly voter base.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 01 2022, @06:53AM
Some political demographics do, they prefer to have others do their thinking for them and then get told what to do.
Problem is that the others who are supposed to be doing the thinking aren't really the sharpest knives in the drawer, or with the best contact to reality.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:26PM
May help reduce the severity of the covid-19 etc you get too - e.g. when you return home, shower (wash your hair, face, nose, eyes etc) and change your clothes (or at least don't wear your possibly virus laden clothes). And don't wear your "outside" shoes inside your home either.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @05:14PM
If you'd like to leverage your time, walking around has multiple benefits:
A friend turned me on to the Aftershokz bluetooth headsets [youtu.be], and I picked up some on eBay when I could get a good price on them. They're over-the-ear so you can hear everything in your surroundings, while also talking on the phone/listening to music/audiobooks/podcasts, so you can get an additional thing done while claiming the other benefits.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Captival on Sunday July 31 2022, @06:00PM
he wrote, from his device and published for others to read on their devices.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 31 2022, @06:49PM (5 children)
I have to question whether people have imaginations. In the long ago past, I took up reading. Then discovered that some of my reading had been turned into TV shows and/or movies. God knows that no show, no movie, could ever compete with my imagination. While reading a science fiction book, the only limits are the author's ability to tell the story, and your own ability to experience the story in your head. As unrealistic as movies are, they are still constrained by physics and physical laws, not to mention budgets and acting ability.
Anyone who has read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy care to weigh in? Seriously, the movie is a let down, isn't it?
Yeah, put the toys away now and then. Read a story for a change. Or, make up your own story. You don't even need a book!
Just sitting and thinking is also a good way to solve insoluble problems. In your imagination, you can attack the problem again and again, always taking a different approach. And, it works!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:33PM (2 children)
I'm reading the Horatio Hornblower series of books: you'd probably understand all the naval lingo of the past better than I, but at least i know port and starboard and can suss out the meaning of the others (figured out that larboard used to be port...probably changed because of possible errors in understanding during battle and storms?).
A good series, for the most part: interesting, anyways.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Sunday July 31 2022, @09:41PM (1 child)
Ah the Hornblower books are one of the next on my list of things to read. They caught my interest because both Gene Roddenberry and Nicholas Meyer independently cited Hornblower as inspiration for Star Trek. While we're on that subject, R.I.P. Nichelle Nichols as well. :"(
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Monday August 01 2022, @12:00AM
You can read them in order of writing or by his career: i chose to read as per his career because it made the most sense to me.
His last books seem to be the better written: goes more into detail instead of glossing over some things.
Interesting: all i heard was that Star Trek was a 'Wagon Train to the stars'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday July 31 2022, @09:38PM (1 child)
Some forms of creative expression benefit greatly from visual elements and/or motion. Maybe not "My Dinner with Andre", but what about a video game? Or physical comedy? You can certainly write for readers and you can write for the screen or stage, and they can be different. Replaying a book as-is for another medium, maybe not so much. Comic books are one of these forms that's kind of in the middle -- it can be well-written, but also storyboard-like enough to be easily interpretable for other media.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 31 2022, @10:17PM
All true, I suppose. But, the issue seems to be that many people stay engrossed in the visual media full time, and they don't have the time, the "training", or even the inclination to exercise the rest of their minds. Shut off the electronic devices, and they are at a loss for anything to do.
(Score: 4, Touché) by SomeGuy on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:04PM (2 children)
"But, but, but, if I put down my precious smert phone I might miss an important weather alert! Whaaaaaaa!!! Boohooohohooo, you are a bad person for even suggesting anything other than what the TV says!"
I can't even begin to count the number of times I have been in waiting room, shopping (in a real store), driving, or even just walking around and see everyone else with their nose buried in their stupid smart phones. Often I'm the only one who isn't doing that. I've got plenty to think about, and quite frankly I don't like being interrupted by trite little things like someone "texting" me to tell me what they ate for lunch. Fuck them.
Someone is confusing cattle with intelligent beings.
Face it, the entire PURPOSE of these stupid little devices is to keep people glued to them for advertising/tracking/selling more cell phones.
Right, somewhere a smart phone saved a babies life once, so we are supposed to be OK with this shit.
As always don't forget to download our FREE weather app/malware to get constant addicting alerts and advertising!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:39PM
Absolutely: when was the last time a text was an emergency in anyones life: we lived without phones for FOREVER, but now it's indispensable?!?!?
I like emails because i can answer them when I want and could do without phones absolutely.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 31 2022, @08:30PM
Many of us can remember when mothers, grandmothers, fathers, aunts, grandfathers, and uncles saved baby's lives, pretty much in that order. Remember when the women sat around at gatherings, discussing important health issues, and sometimes the more mature men would join in? It's a long time since I've seen/heard that taking place. Nowadays, it's 911 for everything from diaper rash to "My baby crawled across the interstate and got splattered!" Never mind that Baby crawled into traffic because Mom was busy with her cell phone, LOL!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:40PM
....it helps one avoid being influenced by idiot 'influencers'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Monday August 01 2022, @01:28AM (1 child)
"We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life." ( From Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC) : https://tlc.ku.edu/ [ku.edu] )
And the result of the mismatch between our hunter/gatherer adaptations and current lifestyles combined with an economic framework that rewards hijacking people's attention and most basic urges and reflexes is: "Across the industrialized modern world, clinical depression has reached epidemic proportions, despite a staggering increase in the use of antidepressant medication. In fact, depression is now the single leading cause of work-related disability for adults under 50. However, there is strong evidence that depression can be both prevented and treated through a set of straightforward changes in lifestyle. Our research has demonstrated that TLC is an effective treatment for depression, with over 70% of patients experiencing a favorable response, as measured by symptom reduction of at least 50%."
One of those reflexes is the "Orienting Response":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response [wikipedia.org]
"In his 2007 book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore posited that watching television affects the orienting response, an effect similar to vicarious traumatization."
Thankfully: "Dr. Ilardi has written a self-help book based on the elements of TLC, The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs."
The basics there are:
* sunlight and vitamin d
* eating more omega3s and other good nutrition
* exercise
* avoiding negative ruminant thinking and doing useful productive things
* adequate good sleep
* positive socialization
Or here is a long video instead of the book:
"Stephen Ilardi: Therapeutic Lifestyle Change for Depression"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HDFEbsGRlA [youtube.com]
Shorter version:
"Depression is a disease of civilization: Stephen Ilardi at TEDxEmory"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drv3BP0Fdi8 [youtube.com]
See also these and similar books on how things went wrong and some options for fixing them:
* "The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness"
* "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose"
* "Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions"
* "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction"
* "Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again"
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Dichzor on Monday August 01 2022, @01:57PM
Silly useless guide-writer, NO.
Your self help books are bullshit.
All dharma (teaching) is empty (of any meaning).
All worthwhile teaching is beyond human comprehension.
Pretending to know, without actually knowing, is at least dishonest.
Please take your book and throw it in the garbage.