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Comment by molbioguy | Hacker News Reader

I get the point that people may prefer external stimulation to internal thoughts. But I think the result of this study hinge on whether the electric shock was really all that unpleasant. For safety reasons, I'll assume the shock wasn't large enough to be harmful or create anything but a momentary sensation. People are curious, and it would seem a fairly safe environment. What's to stop them from simply experimenting with a new sensation. Roller coasters and scary movies should logically be avoided, but they aren't. The guy they mentioned who shocked himself 190 times clearly must have thought it was fun.

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I've shocked myself badly a few times and to me at least, I'd much rather wallow in self pity for a while than do it again.

Probably the worst was one I didn't expect, I slipped when opening a plastic case and caught my fingers over a fully charged high capacity 350v capacitor. The initial hit makes every muscle in your body hurt, then a wave of panic when you realize you could have died from the moment of stupidity.

Putting your hand across phases on a 415V industrial supply will do that as well (which should never have happened but that is why we have training to show people how not to make other peoples fuckups) fortunately I was wearing heavy rubber boots and the contact was momentary.

Lesson of the day when your co-worker/trainee/friend says the supply is isolated...check anyway.

Always follow lockout tagout procedures! Always!

My "favorite" was deisolating a live phone wire with my teeth when I was a kid, and managing to complete the circuit via my tongue just as someone rang. It didn't actually hurt very much. But everything went white for a moment.

I absolutely would prefer pain to boredom. I'm not afraid of being alone with my thoughts, but I am terrified of boredom.

With the shock, I can totally see myself locked in a room with the device and trying to see if I could condition myself to not react to the shock. As long as I had some sense of safety (they have a doctor and some paddles on hand) I would take days seeing how far I could push myself.

And to be clear, I hate pain. But I love to conquer that which would make me weak.

You should pick up a book on medidating, or maybe find some kind of mental hobby. For example designing programs in my head when i'm not at a computer, or reciting kanji shapes i'm learning along with their meanings and readings in my head, are productive uses of time that would otherwise be boring.

Typically I'm not without stimulus long enough to consciously work on development problems (when not at work), but when I do have that much time to myself it's glorious. +1 for quiet alone time.

"""I get the point that people may prefer external stimulation to internal thoughts. But I think the result of this study hinge on whether the electric shock was really all that unpleasant."""

All of these is beside the point.

An electric shock, mild, even pleasant is a BS diversion.

People prefered BS diversion (could be even clicking a button that did nothing at all) that spending a few minutes with their thoughts.

That's the real story -- not how bad the electricity was etc.

People can think anywhere. It's not often they're sat in a room with a little electric shock doodad. Humanities natural curiosity takes over.

You shock yourself 189 times, and you're still curious, so you shock yourself yet again? Unlikely.

That was a single outlier. The mean number of shocks was 1.5.

Unless the 190 buzz guy was the norm, those people spent a lot of time not hitting themselves. Anyone who hit himself once did spent time thinking, then pressed button and then spent another time thinking.

The other thing is, I love spending time with thinking when I choose to and have something interesting to thing about. It does not mean that I will contemplate something cool at every random void moment or never get bored while waiting in queue.

I tend to agree there's not a lot to see here. But the headline reminded me of this:

http://partiallyclips.com/2005/09/08/hell/

Time alone with your thoughts doesn't have to be a good thing.

Their thoughts were certainly around "why did they put that button here?", and "will it really work like the first time again?"

Because well, they were placed in a room where they could shock themselves. Completely out of the ordinary does not describe the setup well enough.

the study hinges on whether the researchers who worked on it, designing it and completing many trials over time, writing it up and getting it published, on whether they thought of something that you just thought of? that the unpleasant shock had to be unpleasant?

REALLY? you really think they missed that?

Just because it's published is no reason not to question the validity of the study. I've been in science long enough to know that flawed work can into important journals.

The Globe article's title and the original title of the HN post focused on the electrical shocks, implying that people would prefer doing something very painful rather than think silently. I can't read the article itself, but the Science Editor's summary included this:

In fact, many of the people studied, particularly the men, chose to give themselves a mild electric shock rather than be deprived of external sensory stimuli.

Doesn't sound terribly unpleasant. That changes a lot in terms of the headline's conclusion, at least for me.

they are talking about people who would pay money to avoid the very same shocks. So, let's extend your thought, doesn't sound terribly unpleasant? nor does being alone with your thoughts sound terribly unpleasant. But they measured the two and discovered that being alone with your thoughts is MORE unpleasant.

your insight that various aspects of the experiment make a difference can be a valuable tool in order to go look deeper into the experiment, but you didn't do that. I'm saying apply a little of the rigor you are demanding to your own argument.

The real article is behind a paywall so all I have is the Globe article.There isn't much to dig into. Based on he Globe article, the researchers "asked the people how much they would pay to avoid the shock experience if they had $5 to spend." And "...of the 42 people who said they would pay to avoid the shock, two-thirds of men chose to shock themselves..." It didn't say anyone actually stood to lose any real money to avoid shocks. It also doesn't even say how much someone would pay ($5, $1, $0.1), just that they would give up some of (hypothetical) $5 they had. This combined with the fact the shocks were "mild shocks to the ankle" makes me wonder whether that was really unpleasant enough to make the point the Globe headline trumpeted.

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