Time alone? Many would rather hurt themselves – Yahoo News.
By Kerry Sheridan
Here’s an interesting study. Just over 200 people ranging in age from 18 to 77 were simply asked to sit in a room for 15 minutes and then describe the experience to researchers. The room provided very little stimulation: no phones, no TVs, no magazines, no computers, no smartphones, etc. Just a simple room with a chair. Bottom line: people described the experience as excruciating. Suffice it to say that the researchers were a bit stunned that people had such a hard time just sitting for 15 minutes without distractions. When asked to describe the experience, a number of people admitted that they had cheated, that is to say, they had used a smartphone, or read reading material they had brought with them, or even made noise so they would not have to hear the sound of silence. Researchers then asked how far people would go to escape the experience of just sitting in a room for 15 minutes. They then gave people the option of shocking themselves. And shock themselves they did, in alarming numbers. All of this led one researcher to comment:
I think we just vastly underestimated both how hard it is to purposely engage in pleasant thought and how strongly we desire external stimulation from the world around us, even when that stimulation is actively unpleasant.
The above study reminded me of the studies that were done with children designed to assess the ability to delay gratification: one of the Executive Function skills. Young kids, around age seven or eight, were put into a room with no distractions (like with the above study). The researchers would put two marshmallows on the table and tell the kids that they could eat the two marshmallows at any time, but if they waited until the researchers returned (usually within ten or fifteen minutes), they would be given two extra marshmallows. Those kids who could wait and not eat the two marshmallows were assessed to have good “delayed gratification” skills. In other words, for them, an imagined future reward had great value.
On average, girls had better delayed gratification skills than boys. Not surprisingly, kids assessed to have good delayed gratification skills early in life generally went on to be successful in such areas as school, career, and even relationships. So, in my opinion, the above “room sitting” study points out just how badly our delayed gratification skills have deteriorated. And why is this significant? Well, if a person is not able to value an imagined future reward, then they will have a very difficult time planning for the future by, say, saving for retirement or engaging in advanced schooling (earning a law or medical degree would be two examples).
So, try it, see if you can simply sit in a room for 15 minutes without distractions and without going crazy. And no cheating, no reaching for that smartphone or shock machine. Maybe the new saying should be, “Please tase me bro, please!”
