✨Thinking is way more fun than we think✨

Across culture, people consistently underrate how fun thinking is. How do we know this and what does it mean?

This study finds that thinking is more fun than we think it will be. And it’s literally called “Thinking About Thinking” 😂

This is kind of interesting and counterintuitive, since it suggest we don’t have a good grasp on how fun one of the most basic activities we undertake is.

Let’s dive in:

So, researchers in the UK and Japan had 259 students across five* experiments estimate how fun just sitting around and thinking would be. Across either culture, whether they are Japanese, or British, the average person thinks that thinking is going to be pretty boring before they do it. But when it’s over, (most) everyone rates thinking as more fun than they thought it would be.

(We also did a video podcast on this paper in February, so check that out if you prefer that format.)

In the first experiment 30 students in Japan were asked to sit in a room and think for 20 minutes. They couldn’t eat or sleep or check their phones.

Before it started, the students were asked to rate how fun they think the experience will be, and they’re kinda like, “I dunno man, this is probably gonna not be cool.” But then they do it, and then when it's over, they’re like “Actually it was kinda okay!”

This first experiment was repeated with a cohort who was not asked to predict how fun sitting and thinking would be. Instead, they were asked only to rate how enjoyable sitting and thinking was. In this cohort, the results were even more dramatic, although the general trend continued.

But maybe you’re skeptical, and you’re like “Okay, the students were just looking around the room, or out the window or whatever, so that’s not so bad. This experiment tells us nothing.” Well, the researchers anticipated this, so for experiment two, they did the same thing, but made the students sit in a totally blacked out tent-like room. The students still liked thinking more than they thought they would–even in the weird tent prison you see above!

Thinking is even fun in a tent prison(!!!)

For experiment three, the researchers varied the time dimension. They had the students think for 3 or 20 minutes, and here, once again, thinking is still way more fun than people think it will be! Although the students who sat and thought for only 3 minutes did have more fun than those who waited around thinking for 20.

But maybe you’re like, “HEY! The students are only saying they’re happy because it’s over. HELLO! That is why it's happening! This whole set of studies makes no sense.” Well, the experimenters thought of that too:

For experiment four, which took place in the UK, they made the students sit and think for 20 minutes. But they asked them how fun it is at random variables. They might ask them how fun it was after 3 minutes, or 18, or somewhere in between. And still, thinking is just (kinda) awesome, meaning, it’s way better than we think it will be.

So for experiment 5 they got more Japanese university students, and they let them make a choice. The researchers were like. “Hey guys, you can think alone, or you can read online news, which is gonna be more fun?” And everyone is like “Ok the news is gonna be more fun than just sitting doing nothing and thinking or whatever.” But at the end of the experiment, they’re the same! Again, thinking is way more fun than we expect.

It turns out people estimate reading the news is like, pretty fun, and then it just meets their expectations. But people are still like “No, thinking is not fun!” and so they say it's not going to be good, but in the end it’s actually pretty fun so they rate it about the same as reading the news. 

My silent meditation retreat:

On a personal note, I did a silent meditation retreat once, and for nine of the 10 days I couldn’t speak to any of the other people. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it might be. And that kind of aligns with this study. I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised either. Humans lived in small groups for a very long time, and some of that time was likely pretty quiet.  Since people have been seeking meditative experiences for thousands of years, there must be some need for quiet that many of us feel.

How could this study be improved?

The big confounding variable we can’t test for is the smartphone/videogame/digital age that we find ourselves in. I really wish a version of this study took place in 1900 (which is impossible). But perhaps someone will run it in a very undeveloped place today (which is possible). You could also do a comparison with monks, but they have actively chosen a life of silence, so that would make it a less ideal comparison.

Having done a silent meditation retreat though, I will say that my perception of time changed, and my addiction to my smartphone was significantly weakened, so running this study for average people who have done only one or two retreats might be interesting as well.

All in all, I would applaud these authors for the study, and especially appreciate they ran tests in both Japan and the UK, which goes some way to mitigating the effect culture could have on such results.

Final Thoughts:

At the end of this paper they get pretty deep. They end the abstract saying;

“These results suggest an inherent difficulty in accurately appreciating how engaging just thinking can be, and could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy, rather than taking a moment for reflection and imagination in our daily life.”

Which is something that is worth thinking about. Life is beautiful and we are so lucky to be even able to sit around and think. My Latin teacher had a framed quote by Ray Bradbury which (as I recall) had a long and moving passage about why you should never wish away time because once you are gone, you would trade anything to get those boring moments back.

Alas I did a quick google search and couldn’t find it. So this other Ray Bradbury quote will have to suffice: “Live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

Who Wrote The Paper?

The study we reviewed was called “Thinking About Thinking: People Underestimate How Enjoyable and Engaging Just Waiting Is” is by Aya Hatano,  Cansu Ogulmus, Hiroaki Shigemasu, and Kou Murayama and was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2022

We made our review of it available as a video podcast on February 17, 2023. Check it out!

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Footnotes:

*The authors say there are six experiments in the study, but they refer to one of them as a 1A and 1B study, so I refer to five experiments in this review.