Study: most people prefer pain by electroshocks to meditation (seriously)!

[Sinera]

OMG, it's worse than we ever thought, you could not make it up ...

They were not even asked to meditate actually. Just to sit still and "think" or be quiet (aware, mindful, reflecting, daydreaming, or whatever) alone with their thoughts. For 15 minutes. Not checking their cell phones every 2 minutes, tapping incessantly on their ipads, reading the internet... twitter or facebook etc.

Most could not do it. They preferred self-torture instead, just to "do" sth.

Is this what we as a society are right now?

Study by: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. & Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

"Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind"

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75

The longer pdf on the study:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pdf

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.
(...)
Nowadays, we enjoy any number of inexpensive and readily accessible stimuli, be they books, videos, or social media. We need never be alone, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. 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.

I find this alarming.

[Lionheart]

Is this what we as a society are right now?

Yes unfortunately it is. Give us one major Solar Flare and we will get to witness the "Zombie Apocalypse" that all these Zombie movies and TV shows are based on.

I don't even use or want to use a Cellphone. I lived for many years with just a land line. I still use one today.
Cue the "Dinosaur" talk from the current generation. But seriously life went on fine without it. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true! I just started to use the computer about 4 years ago and I did because of my unexplained adventures with Astral Travel. I needed to know more and the books I read weren't as good as an actual functioning Forum on the topic were.

[John Sorensen]

OMG, it's worse than we ever thought, you could not make it up ...

They were not even asked to meditate actually. Just to sit still and "think" or be quiet (aware, mindful, reflecting, daydreaming, or whatever) alone with their thoughts. For 15 minutes. Not checking their cell phones every 2 minutes, tapping incessantly on their ipads, reading the internet... twitter or facebook etc.

Most could not do it. They preferred self-torture instead, just to "do" sth.

Interesting post, thank you.


"Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. "
- Mark Twain

Scientific "studies" that start with conclusions in my cynical view are a waste of time.

*If the world is insane and your thoughts are insane, would YOU want to be alone with an endlessly repeating record telling you how worthless and useless you are?

*Is it a surprise that people would prefer ANY distraction to this?

*What is the result of telling people from birth that they exist in a meaningless universe where single celled organisms accidentally evolved into upright walking bipedal mammals capable of pondering existence but giving them nothing of substance?

*If the world is a melting pot, a smorgasbord of belief systems, should we go on cultivating belief "systems" when so far every attempt has failed us, or perhaps can we do without belief systems altogether, meaning we would have to be present every day of our lives, and rely on direct experience, rather than someone else's conceptual ideas of life.

[ButterflyWoman]

Saw this. All I could think is that they must have tested an awful lot of Myers-Briggs extraverts. I love my alone time. Crave it, even.

Is this what we as a society are right now?

While I agree that many conditions of the Western world currently contribute to very short attention spans and shallow thinking, I don't think "right now" applies. Humans have never been good at deep thought and being still. This is why monks, nuns, and other contemplatives are always oddballs, sometimes seen as saints, and have always had to build their own, often cloistered, societies. Or go live in a cave on a mountain, I guess. Or in the desert, living on locusts and wild honey...

[Sinera]

I don't even use or want to use a Cellphone. I lived for many years with just a land line. I still use one today.

As of recent, I'm receiving several phone calls from a temp agency who offers me job opportunities (it's about getting interviews with possible employers). This nice lady recently asked me almost in a worried tone if my cell phone is "somehow broken" or my provider's net down too often. It is because she could not reach me instantly but had to send me an e-mail each time asking me to call her back on the phone. I then told her just the way it is: "No. I just have it switched off then, most of the time, actually." Guess her reaction. . Priceless. She could not figure that one out, she was entirely flabbergasted. I guess she was even unable to fathom that there still might be sth like an "off button" on each cell phone which one can use.

Scientific "studies" that start with conclusions in my cynical view are a waste of time.

I admit my quote was maybe a bit misleading. The commentary part that starts with "Nowadays ..." is the editor's addition. An "abstract" on what the study is about including some of the "results / conclusions" is normal for almost every study publication nowadays. I think the abstract is usually written after the study is finished (well, at least I hope so ).

Saw this. All I could think is that they must have tested an awful lot of Myers-Briggs extraverts. I love my alone time. Crave it, even.

Same for me. I could not even 'live' here anymore without this off-time.

While I agree that many conditions of the Western world currently contribute to very short attention spans and shallow thinking, I don't think "right now" applies. Humans have never been good at deep thought and being still. This is why monks, nuns, and other contemplatives are always oddballs, sometimes seen as saints, and have always had to build their own, often cloistered, societies. Or go live in a cave on a mountain, I guess. Or in the desert, living on locusts and wild honey...

While this is certainly very true I fear the bad development of information & communication technology with all those constant over-stimulatiions and the sheer 'speed' and mass at which they bombard the people 24/7 at rapid succession. This concerns especially the young ones who are now growing up with it (and don't know different or "better") and imv this fundamentally aggravates this situation.