Story at a glance
- For the study, researchers compared expectation versus reality for a total of 259 participants across six experiments to measure how much people enjoyed being distraction free.
- One experiment asked participants to predict how much they thought they would enjoy sitting alone without doing anything else for 20 minutes.
- People enjoyed sitting alone with their thoughts far more than they predicted, researchers said.
People who spend time without distractions enjoy the moments alone with their thoughts more than they think they will, according to a new study.
For the study, researchers compared expectation versus reality for a total of 259 participants across six experiments to measure how much people enjoyed being distraction free.
One experiment asked participants to predict how much they thought they would enjoy sitting alone without doing anything else for 20 minutes. People enjoyed sitting alone with their thoughts far more than they predicted, researchers said.
“Humans have a striking ability to immerse themselves in their own thinking,” said study lead author Aya Hatano of Kyoto University in Japan.
“Our research suggests that individuals have difficulty appreciating just how engaging thinking can be,” Hatano continued. “That could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy with devices and other distractions, rather than taking a moment for reflection and imagination in daily life.”
Researchers said their findings were consistent along several variations of the experiment. One experiment, for example, had participants sit in a dark area with no visual stimuli.
Another experiment split up the participants into groups. One sat alone, thinking, while the other checked the news on the internet. The group sitting alone predicted they would enjoy the activity far less than the group reading the news.
Yet both groups reported similar levels of enjoyment at the end.
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Study co-author Kou Murayama said people who think their life will be less boring by distracting themselves from their thoughts risk missing the opportunity to positively engage with themselves “without relying on such stimulation.”
Researchers noted that sitting alone with one’s thought was not rated a particularly enjoyable task, but it was better than participants thought. There are also dangers for some, they added.
“Not all thinking is intrinsically rewarding, and in fact some people are prone to vicious cycles of negative thinking,” Murayama said.
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Published on Jul 28,2022