How to get a life
The average American spends more than four hours a day on their smartphone and more than seven in total online. That adds up to 17 years of adult life browsing the internet. That’s one way to get a life, I suppose, but what else can one choose to do?–MR
The big idea: should we embrace boredom?
By Sophie McBain, Guardian US, June 15 2025
In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times–even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study’s authors concluded that “people prefer doing to thinking,” even if the only thing available to do is painful–perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.
