Humans are unique among the animals in our ability to mentally detach from our surroundings and purposely look inward. But sitting in quiet contemplation turns out to be much tougher than it seems, University of Virginia and Harvard researchers reported in Science in July.
The researchers instructed 146 college students to sit in an austere laboratory for up to 15 minutes without cell phones, books or other distractions, entertaining themselves with only their thoughts. Most of them couldn’t do it, and reported being bored. Even in the presumably cozier environs of their home, volunteers in another experiment found their own musings painfully dull.
Then, when researchers left people alone in a room with a device that let them jolt themselves with mild electric shocks, they discovered that most men are so desperate for distractions that they would rather zap themselves. Two-thirds of men in the study, compared with 25 percent ...
