iPhone users are sad and mentally unfocused
Many fondle-slabbers doleful even during jig-jig
A shock study of iPhone users has found that they spend 46.9 per cent of their time thinking about something other than what they're doing - and this febrile absentmindedness makes them deeply unhappy.
"A wandering mind is an unhappy mind," say trick-cyclists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard uni. "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."
In order to discover the mournful effects of fondle-slab possession, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 per cent of the time. The only activity which caused doleful absentmindedness to drop below 30 per cent among slab-fondlers was "making love".
"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth says. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."
According to the app-happy trick cyclists, it is letting your mind wander that makes you unhappy, not the other way round.
"Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to 'be here now,'" Killingsworth and Gilbert contend. "These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
The researchers' paper can be read here (subscription link). Alternatively their web app is located here. ®
COMMENTS
And on the flip side...
I turned down a job at a small division of a larger company earlier this year. The fact that the staff were mostly fanbois and took unnerving delight in brandishing their iPhones, iPods and especially iPads was not the only factor in my decision, but neither was it an insignificant one.
The staff rather fitted the fanboi stereotype and the common accusation of "style-over-substance" made about Apple products seemed to fit these people more than their devices. I didn't feel comfortable about them or their office.
The company recently decided to fold that division and everyone who wouldn't move to the parent company was laid off. Turns out the products they built weren't up to much, and they'd wasted what money they had earned. Another notch in the bedpost of my ability to judge character.
It's not that Apple products caused this; just that they attract people of a certain mindset. Mind you, I haven't got much of an attention span either. Oh, the irony.
Title is a title
Quality Trolling for a friday afternoon Reg.
Re: So let me get this right...
"Lady Palm"
is that a reference to Pré cum?
Sorry...
Wandering mind
IIRC the guy who invented the Cray supercomputer stuff would occasionally hit a problem that was particularly problematic. He generally found a solution by going off and doing something mundane like digging a ditch or painting a barn. The answer would just come to him once he stopped looking for it.
Erm, no
Turns out that women don't multi-task after all, no-one does.
We all use the same system of time slicing but a lot of it depends on how many tasks can be kept ticking over.
I can manage to watch the telly, drink beer and scratch my arse all at the same time - is that multi-tasking?
