Most people dislike sitting in a room with nothing to do but think for several minutes. Most men, and a quarter of women, even chose to shock themselves with a mild electric jolt than spend time alone doing nothing. (Courtesy of Science/AAAS) 
 
 People, and especially men, hate being alone with their thoughts so much that they'd rather be in pain. In a study published in Science Thursday on the ability of people to let their minds “wander” — that is, for them to sit and do nothing but think — researchers found that about a quarter of women and two-thirds of men chose electric shocks over their own company. 
 
 “We went into this thinking that mind wandering wouldn’t be that hard,” said Timothy Wilson, University of Virginia professor of psychology and lead author of the study. “People usually think of mind wandering as being a bad thing, because it interrupts when you’re trying to pay attention. But we wanted to see what happens when mind wandering is the goal.” 
 
 Wilson didn’t think his subjects would struggle with the task. “We have this big brain full of pleasant memories, and we’re able to tell ourselves stories and make up fantasies. But despite that, we kept finding that people didn’t like it much and found it hard.” 
 
 The researchers tried everything they could think of to make the task of being task-less easier. “We tried to give them time to prepare,” he said, “so they could think about what they were going to spend their time thinking about.” 
 
 But even going into the exercise with a plan — an upcoming vacation to plot, for example, or a particularly dreamy celebrity to daydream about — didn’t seem to help participants enjoy their time alone. Those who completed the study at home often admitted to cheating by picking up their phones or a book, and many reported that the six to 15 minutes spent thinking had been unpleasant. 
 
 When it became clear that people were desperate for distractions, the researchers decided to give them one. “It dawned on us: If people find this so difficult,” Wilson said, “would they prefer negative stimulations to boredom?” He gave them access to a device that would provide a small electrical shock by pressing a button. It wasn't a very strong shock, as the device was built around a 9 volt battery. “But we weren’t even sure it was worth doing,” he said. “I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice.” 
 
 But they did. The researchers removed the curiosity factor by giving subjects a sample shock beforehand. They even asked them how much they would pay, given a $5 allowance, to prevent another shock. Most offered up a hypothetical dollar or two. But when left alone in the room for a 15-minute thinking session, the participants exhibited some shocking behavior. One man (whose data was left out of the study) shocked himself 190 times. “I have no idea what was going on there,” Wilson said. “But for most people, it was more like seven times.” 
 
 And while only 6 of the 24 women shocked themselves, 12 of the 18 men did so. This, the authors wrote in the study, could be attributed to the fact that men tend to be more "sensation seeking" than women. In other words, most men are more interested in seeking variety and stimulation than women are, even if that means getting 190 electric shocks in 15 minutes. 
 
 Jonathan Smallwood, a professor of psychology at the University of York who wasn’t involved in the study said that being able to disengage mentally is an important attribute. “It allows us to think about information that is not in the environment,” Smallwood said. It's hypothesized that this allows us to act in ways that aren't directly influenced by our environmental stimuli. "So that is probably the way," he said, "that the human mind escapes from simple reflexive behavior.” 
 
 The ability to let the mind wander has been linked to greater working memory and increased creativity, he said. But the study’s findings don’t surprise him. In a world where we have a hundred distractions—social media and smartphones, for example—the subjects probably found being alone with their thoughts to be strange, Smallwood said. Although Wilson's studies were small, with a series of 11 experiments using between 40 and 100 people each, both researchers said that the field is ripe for further exploration. 
 
 Don’t disable your Facebook just yet: It’s possible that modern distractions aren’t totally to blame. In fact, study participants who used social media less frequently weren’t better daydreamers. “I suppose it’s kind of circular,” Wilson said. “We wouldn’t crave these things if we weren’t in need of distractions. But having so many available keeps us from learning how to disengage.” ||||| Photo: Photo: Darren Modricker/Corbis 
 
 Most people don’t think it’s fun to sit alone with nothing to do but think — it’s part of the reason for obsessive phone-checking during idle moments. A new study in Science highlights just how unenjoyable this experience is: in short, very. To the point that some people will choose to shock themselves rather than sit alone with nothing to do for a little while. 
 
 The researchers conducted 11 experiments in a variety of settings and among a variety of age groups. In most of them, subjects were asked to simply chill out and think for 6 to 15 minutes — no phone, no book, no nothing — and then rate the experience. The participants found it very hard to do so, with rather high percentages saying it was unenjoyable and that they found their minds wandering in a distracting way. And when one group in one experiment was offered entertainment like listening to music or surfing the web, they reported that that was much more enjoyable than being alone with their thoughts. 
 
 Maybe not too, too surprising. But one of the experiments really upped the ante in a — sorry — shocking way. 
 
 In that one, participants were asked to rate the pleasantness or unpleasantness of a number of stimuli, including an electric shock, and then asked how much of $5 they’d pay to experience or not experience each of them again. Then, they were asked to sit alone with their thoughts, but told that if they wanted to, they could shock themselves by pressing a button (because why not?). 
 
 Among the participants who said they’d pay to avoid being shocked again (meaning those who found it particularly unpleasant), 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women nonetheless shocked themselves rather than face, without distraction, what is apparently a terrifying hellscape inside their heads. The researchers suggest the gender difference could come down to men having greater sensation-seeking tendencies than women — that is, they get bored more easily. 
 
 These studies, the researchers write, can help explain why some people seek out mindfulness training — simply to make idle moments, which are inevitable, less difficult, and less likely to lead to unpleasant ruminating or self-criticism. 
 
 “Without such training,” they write, “people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.” Amen.
– For a surprising number of people, 15 minutes alone with their thoughts appears to be a psychological ordeal so grueling they would rather give themselves an electric shock. In one of a series of experiments involving leaving people with nothing to do but think, a quarter of women and two-thirds of men left alone for a 15-minute thinking session with no phones or other distractions ended up giving themselves a small shock with a device built around a 9-volt battery, the Washington Post finds. One man—whose data was left out of the study—shocked himself 190 times. "I have no idea what was going on there," the lead researcher says. "For most people, it was more like seven times." The researchers believe men could be more prone to shock themselves because they are more "sensation-seeking." People were given plenty of time to prepare for the thinking session, says the lead researcher, who included the shock device when he realized some people left alone without phones were desperate for distraction. "We weren’t even sure it was worth doing," he says. "I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice." The researchers say their work explains why many people seek out mindfulness training, New York notes. "Without such training people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it," they say. "The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself."