Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)

# · 🔥 266 · 💬 195 · 2 years ago · news.virginia.edu · looperhacks · 📷
The investigation found that most would rather be doing something - possibly even hurting themselves - than doing nothing or sitting alone with their thoughts, said the researchers, whose findings will be published July 4 in the journal Science. Harvard University found that study participants from a range of ages generally did not enjoy spending even brief periods of time alone in a room with nothing to do but think, ponder or daydream. "Those of us who enjoy some down time to just think likely find the results of this study surprising - I certainly do - but our study participants consistently demonstrated that they would rather have something to do than to have nothing other than their thoughts for even a fairly brief period of time," Wilson said. So Wilson conducted another study with participants from a broad selection of backgrounds, ranging in age from 18 to 77, and found essentially the same results. During several of Wilson's experiments, participants were asked to sit alone in an unadorned room at a laboratory with no cell phone, reading materials or writing implements, and to spend six to 15 minutes - depending on the study - entertaining themselves with their thoughts. An additional experiment randomly assigned participants to spend time with their thoughts or the same amount of time doing an external activity, such as reading or listening to music, but not to communicate with others. Because most people prefer having something to do rather than just thinking, they then asked, "Would they rather do an unpleasant activity than no activity at all?".
Doing something is better than doing nothing for most people: study (2014)



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