This new study published in Science is making the news. The study by Wilson et al. focuses on our need to never be alone, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Science sums up “Wilson et al. explored the state of being alone with one’s thoughts and found that it appears to be an unpleasant experience. In fact, many of the people studied, particularly the men, chose to give themselves a mild electric shock rather than be deprived of external sensory stimuli.” The Washington Post has a video that summarizes the study.
Wait, we would rather give ourselves a mild shock than to be alone for a while without something else to do than think?
Do mind (no pun intended), this study is NOT on technology (what some people make of it) but on mind wandering. The study was designed to test people’s ability to daydream, to sustain unstructured mental activity. ”We have this big brain full of pleasant memories, and we’re able to tell ourselves stories and make up fantasies,” Wilson tells the Washington Post. “But despite that, we kept finding that people didn’t like it much and found it hard.” The data also shows us that men thinks being alone more difficult than women. Only 25% of the women in the final experiment of the study gave themselves shocks during a 15-minute period versus 66% of the men.
As the researchers I would rather see social media and smartphones as a symptom than as a cause. We are not addicted to Facebook, maybe we’re just craving contact?
“In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.”