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Study: People Would Rather Be Shocked Than Be Alone With Their Thoughts
sciencehabit writes "How much do we hate being alone with our own thoughts? Enough to give ourselves an electric shock. In a new study, researchers recruited hundreds of people and made them sit in an empty room and just think for about 15 minutes. About half of the volunteers hated the experience. In a separate experiment, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to push a button and shock themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think. One of the study authors suggests that the results may be due to boredom and the trouble that we have controlling our thoughts. "I think [our] mind is built to engage in the world," he says. "So when we don't give it anything to focus on, it's kind of hard to know what to do."
But the button? THE SHINY RED BUTTON! Calling out to you. Begging to be pressed. How long can you last? How long?!?!
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
So we need to install this in prisons' solitary confinement. Then, after the novelty wears off, we'll finally know.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
Erotic is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken.
tl;dr
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!