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Humans Simply 'Hardwired' For Laziness, Study Says (studyfinds.org)
Zorro shares a report from Study Finds: [...] A new study shows we may just have to chalk it up to our brains simply being hardwired to prefer hanging on the couch instead of the chin-up bar. Researchers from the University of British Columbia and University of Geneva sought to better understand the brain chemistry behind what they refer to as the "exercise paradox." This happens when people pledge to engage in regular physical fitness, but instead find themselves becoming less active. "Conserving energy has been essential for humans' survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual partners, and avoiding predators," explains Matthew Boisgontier, a postdoctoral researcher in UBC's brain behavior lab at the department of physical therapy, and senior author of the study, in a UBC release.
So Boisgontier and his co-authors recruited 29 young adults who wanted to improve the level of exercise in their lives to take part in a computerized test. The test required them to move a human figure on the screen either towards images of physical activities or away from images of sedentary activities that would randomly appear, and then again vice versa. Participants were hooked up to an electroencephalograph to monitor their brain activity during the exercise. The results showed that participants tended to move towards the active images or away from the sedentary ones at the fastest rates. "We found that participants took 32 milliseconds less to move away from the sedentary image, which is considerable for a task like this," says study co-author Boris Cheval, of the University of Geneva, in a university release, adding that this finding went against the so-called exercise paradox.
So Boisgontier and his co-authors recruited 29 young adults who wanted to improve the level of exercise in their lives to take part in a computerized test. The test required them to move a human figure on the screen either towards images of physical activities or away from images of sedentary activities that would randomly appear, and then again vice versa. Participants were hooked up to an electroencephalograph to monitor their brain activity during the exercise. The results showed that participants tended to move towards the active images or away from the sedentary ones at the fastest rates. "We found that participants took 32 milliseconds less to move away from the sedentary image, which is considerable for a task like this," says study co-author Boris Cheval, of the University of Geneva, in a university release, adding that this finding went against the so-called exercise paradox.
I am fulfilling my intended role in the universe! Whoo hoo!
zzzz
That's why we're still running around naked with no space ships or computers or anything. Because we are lazy.
Where is Diogenes when you need to refute stupid fucking premises like this?
Food was scarce for the vast majority of our evolution. If you burned too many calories, you died of starvation, or ended up too skinny to be considered a viable mate. Thus, we are wired to hunt for shortcuts and get the most stuff with the least amount of effort.
(I just wish our stack engineer who piles layers of fads onto our stack had this "feature". The bastard seems to like typing...or watching us type.)
Table-ized A.I.
Someone can sum up the article please?
Clothes make it EASIER to stay warm. We can be warm sitting on our butt instead of needing to exercise or otherwise burn calories to stay warm. Clothes help us be lazy.
Computers make things easier. We can lazily click to have things delivered to our doorstep, rather than going to the immense effort of sitting in the car driving to the store. Computers help us be lazy.
We chose to build spaceships not because it is easy, but because it is hard ;) Actually at first we built rockets because we were afraid of the Russians. We're hard-wired for lazy, but we're also hard-wired to be powerfully motivated by fear. Fear overcomes laziness.
These days satellites do make things easier, no need to actually red a nap, we can let our phone read the directions out to us. We can be lazy.
Another scoop at 'Science 101', human are also hardwired to eat fast-food!! /Insert 'you don't say?' meme
I mean, seriously. Human (and all living organisms really) have evolved to survive as long as possible and for calories burning machine like our species, one of the challenge was to survive when food wasn't available. A then evolved to store fat, to love high calorie diet and to love 'not' wasting them when possible. That's how our body are made.
By chance, our brain is now smart enough to understand how dumb he really is. But take any animal (like my dumb cat), give him all the food of the world and he will get so fat that his paw won't touch the floor 'Garfield style' and he will die of thirst.
Elok
competing for sexual partners
Because you find so many more sexual partners hanging on your couch at home than when you are at the gym.
... are just so stories. Their sole criterion for believing is how believable they sound. They can explain everything, so they shed light on nothing. The leap of logic from the experiment they did to the conclusions they drew was, quite literally, mind boggling.
Sure we have a genetic predisposition to conserve energy, otherwise we'd walk ourselves into starvation. But that's not the same as saying we're born to be couch potatoes; if that were true then how do you explain the existence of marathon runners? You could just as easily argue that we evolved to chase down mammoths; we certainly have physical adaptations unique among land animals for long distance running.
The one obvious thing about human behavior is that it is tremendous flexible. Under the right circumstances a couch potato will become a marathon runner.
The "exercise paradox" usually refers to the fact that increasing physical activity does not, on its own, result in weight loss. That's not really a paradox, it's just a reflection of the fact that calorie consumption tends to naturally rise as our activity levels rise. The behavioral "exercise paradox" they're talking about here isn't a paradox either. It's just social psychology. It's well-established that telling people you are going to pursue a goal (like exercising more) actually reduces the chances of you taking concrete steps toward that goal.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In a perfect demonstration of laziness, rather than find a new topic to discuss the SAME SLASHDOT EDITOR allowed a submission about the SAME RESEARCH by the SAME SUBMITTER but merely from a different and rather tardy source almost a month later. Way to prove the point, guys!
The parent's point plus the sample size here is completely ridiculous. You cant draw any meaningful conclusions off those miniscule numbers.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I've read before that humans are busier than beavers.
Humans like most creatures need rest.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
But I couldn't be bothered to read it.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once, during a job interview, I was asked the standard "what do you consider your strong points?" question. Impromptu, I replied: "Probably my strongest point is my laziness." The interviewer was appropriately shocked and asked me to expand. "Sure. I could do like the horse in Animal Farm and just 'work harder' but I'm always looking for ways to do things easier, faster, more consistently and with less work by me - Gerry Gilmore." Oddly enough, I got the job.
Is the reason I'm against things like Universal Basic Income.
Because, if you give some people the opportunity to simply do NOTHING for a living, nothing is EXACTLY what they'll do.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Yes, I'm work shy. Work adverse, to be accurate. And anyone who isn't is an idiot. Nobody in their right mind would willingly do something they don't want to do for no good reason whatsoever.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah, we'll send people like you to die for us. Like we always do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"The youth" has been worthless for at the very least 3000 years now.
They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things -- and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning -- all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything -- they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.
(Aristotle)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Squirrels, the inventors of ADHS.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just stand near a place where they have parallel stairs and escalators, and watch people all crowd in front of the escalators. I have witnessed groups of people walking around the stairs so they can get in line to take the escalator down.
Sensible people who understand that time is our most precious and limited resource will work for others only just enough to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Any hours remaining after that need is met can be dedicated to favourite hobbies, pastimes, unpaid vocations or other personal interests --- that's called "Having a life".
If you don't understand that then you're either an employer who benefits from the depressed wages that come with a mass labour pool, which is the primary reason for promoting the work ethic, or you have fallen for it yourself.
Either way, labouring is a distressing waste of people's lives, and advocating that it should be normal in a modern technological society is a barbaric and unethical position.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
News at 11: the second law of thermodynamics (manifested via the principle of minimum energy) also applies to living organisms. We are not "lazy" -- we are doing everything we can to conserve energy. The human brain does the same.
you'll wont be good in either of them if the only thing you do is sit on the couch all day.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
young adults who wanted to improve the level of exercise in their lives
Also I wondered if this meant that they wanted to "lose weight and get healthier" but weren't doing a good job to / not committed to it. If that's true, shouldn't they also have mixed in people who were fit and worked out regularly along with committed couch potatoes? It sounds like their test group was the "I want to lose weight but I don't like to exercise and I love cake!~" crowd.
but I just can't be bothered.
i love to lay in my hammock and slowly sip Southern Comfort
https://i.imgur.com/OT0cJi8.jp...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
—Robert Heinlein
That must be down in our lizard brain. Reptiles will often lie around for ages until they see something to eat, then jump on it. It's a simple power-saving strategy... don't do something when you have nothing to do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Too lazy, didn't read
Especially where they don't have to gather food (or fatten up) for winter,
Stupid ones, shouldn't be allowed to vote. A SIMPLE constitution test & history test should be required before voting to weed out the STUPID ones.
Is this really a quality of humans, or of everything that lives?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I hate to break it to these guys but there are countless examples that disprove this. I believe I am human and when I show up to a job where I could slack easily I prefer to work hard. Yes, I'm just one example; an anecdote that doesn't equal evidence as I'm sure some idiot would be quick to reply. The problem is that there are many, many like me as well as other counter-examples.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Does BeauHD even read the articles or check for dupes??? see last months post by the same user & also approved by the BeauHD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FTS:
"The results showed that participants tended to move towards the active images or away from the sedentary ones at the fastest rates. "We found that participants took 32 milliseconds less to move away from the sedentary image, which is considerable for a task like this," says study co-author Boris Cheval, of the University of Geneva, in a university release, adding that this finding went against the so-called exercise paradox."
'participans moved at the fastest rates'?!?!?! Hunh? with respect to what?!
If it takes less time to move away from a sedentary image than from an active one, wouldn't that be evidence that people are 'hard wired' to be less lazy!?!! *SMH*
We develop technology in order to use it, not to just throw it away without uaing it. The purpose is to use it, in order to expend less net effort.
"The youth" has been worthless for at the very least 3000 years now.
They have. What you fail to realize is that Greece was conquered, its influence began to wane, and it split into warring factions during Aristotle's lifetime.
Aristotle lived from 384 B.C. to 322 B.C. and the "Classical Era" ended in 338 when Phillip of Macedon conquered Greece, and the height of its influence died with Alexander in 323 B.C. After that, the country fractured into the Achaean League and the Aetolian League which began decades of warfare until the Romans conquered them.
So, yes. The youth during Aristotle's time were worthless, and they failed to defend the Greek Empire, or even hold together as a single nation once their conqueror died and his empire tore apart.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
The Greek empire? Last time I checked before Phillip Greece was a collection of city-states, constantly bickering and warring over nothing other than them being another city-state than us. Conquering that isn't that big a deal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hard work may pay off the long run, but laziness always pays off now.