Many people prefer to be electrocuted rather than alone and do nothing. Uh, what? What sounds like a bad joke to busy people with vacation dreams and lack of relaxation is actually the result of a study by the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, according to Science Magazine. The subjects were left alone for about 15 minutes without distraction. The only way to do something: use a stun gun to inflict small shocks (which the same test subjects found to be very uncomfortable). Many of the subjects used the shocker after some time. No joke! It still seemed more pleasant to them than doing nothing. Yes, we are also a bit irritated …
And again it's to blame: digitization. Or?
Luckily, there isn't much time left to do nothing these days, in times of digitalization. If you are looking for a culprit, it is always very popular anyway. In this case, however, it seems obvious: smartphones, tablets and the like have replaced staring into the air. It is so! Or? Well, the heads of the study are not making it that easy. They think that staring at smartphones in general is more of a symptom than the cause of being busy.
Although thinking about the past, the future and the meaning of life is considered deeply human, in the end people just don't seem to want to give in to that thinking. At least less than on Netflix, Facebook, Instagram … or just electric shocks. You can see that this is already anchored in us when you watch children. Or who knows children who just don't do anything?
Nevertheless: doing nothing is important
Although we don't like doing it very much: doing something in between is still important, say brain researchers. In the course of the so-called bunker experiments in the 1970s, in which people were completely isolated, it was found that one only has to get used to the state of being alone without being distracted. Most subjects no longer found the isolation from distraction and other people uncomfortable after some time. On the contrary, it seemed good to them. Following the experiments designed for NASA, study leader Ernst Pöppel did the self-experiment and found that after a short period of familiarization, he was able to work much more concentrated without distraction and felt much more independent of external influences. So it's all a question of habit …
Switch to default mode again
If you still think that doing nothing worse than electric shocks, a nicer expression might help. Experts do not speak of doing nothing anyway, nor of idleness, let alone laziness. You speak of the so-called default mode, i.e. the resting state of the brain. It has been proven that this is actually not as calm as the name suggests. In some regions of the brain, the synapses celebrate as soon as the mind comes to rest. Coincidentally, this is exactly the region in which our creativity and our ability to solve problems are anchored. You could think about it. Or just grab another shocker. Bzzzzzzzz! Oh, wonderful!