Alone with Our Thoughts

In what now seems the distant past — the late 1990s or early 2000s — as I walked to my car after work each evening, I noticed a common behavior in others also walking to their cars. A lot of them were talking on their cellphones.

This was before smartphones became a thing and long before apps on phones. To the extent there was texting, one had to laboriously use the dialing keypad. Those devices were just cellphones.

Watching so many walk-and-chat struck me as odd — I valued the quiet moments of transition from work to personal life.

For one thing, consider the difference between the drive to work and the drive back home. Going to work, the order is:

1. Get ready,
2. Drive (probably in rush-hour traffic),
3. Arrive at work,
4. Walk from car into work,
5. Commence working.

Going home, the order is:

1. Stop working,
2. Walk from work to car,
3. Drive (probably in rush-hour traffic),
4. Arrive home,
5. Commence private life.

The drive, especially in rush-hour traffic, requires a clear and focused mind. It can also be a bit grueling, depending on the length of the drive and amount of traffic (and possibly road or weather conditions).

The drive into work is the beginning of the workday. One is presumably fresh and ready (or at least as fresh and ready as one is likely to be that day). One might leverage the drive time any number of ways: audio books, talk radio, news radio (or in my case, music).

The drive home after work is different. It comes at the end of the (possibly long) day, one has been in “work mind” (and possibly having to keep on a work face) all day. Now comes another drive and after that, depending on one’s personal life, walking the dog, arranging dinner, dealing with family, or possibly getting ready to go out.

My point is this: Wouldn’t it seem logical to enjoy the quiet moments between work mode and home mode? Driving is alone time but still requires careful attention (though there might be something to listen to). If work life is busy and home life is busy (which seems the case for most), wouldn’t that walk to the car at the end of the day be the perfect time for quiet?

Yet every time, I saw many chatting on their cellphones.

I could think of possible reasons:

• Making arrangements to meet,
• Seeing if something (milk, bread, etc.) needs to be picked up,
• Providing a heads up when leaving early or late,
• Because cellphones are new and still kinda cool.

Was it that or, just maybe, based on other observations over a lifetime, are people afraid to be alone in their own heads?

Over the years it has remained a viable theory for me. I’ve seen time and again people who seemed unable to be alone with their thoughts.

Which to me is very weird. I love being alone with my thoughts! Kinda prefer it in some ways.

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Recently, I read a striking article written by Ian Taylor in New Scientist:

One study showed that people would rather spend 15 minutes getting electric shocks than 15 minutes of time with their own thoughts – particularly men: 67 per cent of men preferred the electric shock, compared with 25 per cent of women. In dead time, we tend to reach for our mobile phones, but a recent study showed that reaching for your mobile phone and mindlessly scrolling to relieve boredom actually makes you more bored.

If we can get over our anxieties about being alone and our negative thoughts during alone time, then solitude is different and can have real benefits. There’s some interesting research from decades ago that examined prisoners in solitary confinement and other isolated experiences like polar expeditions. These studies found that if supportive conditions were provided (or prison guards didn’t abuse the inmates), successfully dealing with the challenges associated with isolation led to personal growth and enhanced self-sufficiency.

More broadly, solitude can increase creativity and emotional well-being, and help clarify thoughts. Being a bit more mindful during alone time, rather than distracting ourselves, is quite a powerful method for improving our well-being.

[Bolding for emphasis mine.] That first sentence. Wow. Electric shocks preferable to being alone with one’s thoughts for a mere 15 minutes. That’s stunning to me (but maybe explains much).

We currently live in what’s sometimes called an “attention economy” — your (sometimes unwitting or even unwilling) attention is a marketed resource for businesses. (Which brings up another bit of interesting information, but I’ll get to that later.)

First, consider what New Scientist columnist Annalee Newitz wrote in the latest issue:

This is hardly a new or unique experience. Sociologists have been talking about it for nearly 80 years. In 1950, scholars David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney published a book called The Lonely Crowd, in which they argued that the rise of consumerism and mass media had led to a new a kind of personality type that is deeply sensitive to loneliness. They called this personality “other-directed”, and their descriptions feel startlingly prescient in our era of social media and AI chatbots.

Other-directed people are constantly attuned to what everyone around them is doing, using the preferences of their peer groups to decide what to buy, wear, and think. Because their values come from peers, rather than elders or ancestors, they tend to be present-oriented and unconcerned with history.

She’s right; this feels “startlingly prescient”. And an accurate description of what’s happening with social media companies. Or more correctly, what social media companies are doing to the way we think.

As Annalee says later in her column:

And because we fear being alone, companies produce apps designed to fool us into thinking we aren’t. That’s one of the insidious things about AI chatbots, some of which are designed to act like friends.

There’s a paradox in every other-directed person’s heart. As much as we may want to conform, to be part of the group chat, we also want to feel like we are unique.

She goes on to describe how companies offer “false personalisation” — for instance offering the same shirt in different colors. And how the “For You” feeds on streaming platforms are another example. It isn’t really “for you” at all but designed to keep you glued to the app.

I can attest to the addictive nature of a feed. I’ve never had Twitter or any such platform until Substack Notes, which is their version of Twitter. Once I click into Notes, it’s much harder to close the window than to hit the scroll wheel on my mouse one more time. Maybe the next few Notes will be interesting…

It requires an active decision to stop, a positive act of will.

Mindless scrolling… is mindless.

This “false personalisation” explains why there are so many different kinds of Doritos corn chips. Or other kinds of snacks and foods. Entire supermarket aisles of different breakfast cereals. We’re offered a bewildering array of varieties.

Social media companies have this down to a science:

We turn ourselves into internet content, adding or words and videos to the morass of others online. Be yourself by showing that you are doing what everybody else is doing!

And yet we still feel lonely. […] When we cobble ourselves together out of what we think other people want, we hide from something crucial: our own truly personal, messy, eccentric, non-conformist desires. We can’t connect with other people in a genuine way if we don’t know ourselves.

Here again the notion of being afraid to be alone. I especially like that last paragraph about building an identity from what we think others want.

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It’s entirely human to believe we’re special among the other eight+ billion humans on Earth right now, but here’s a reality check: You’re not special. Almost no one is. Especially if you make a habit of going with the crowd or trends.

As people go, I’m definitely something of an outlier (and anti-trendy), but even I run into versions of myself. (Based on his writing, science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer strikes me as someone very like myself. We appear to have similar background, tastes, and interests.)

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Lastly, another New Scientist article, this one about “social nudging” — government or corporate sponsored propaganda programs designed to “nudge” people towards doing the “right” thing (not littering, eating better, exercising, and so on). Such programs sometimes try to make doing the “wrong” thing harder and the “right” thing easier.

Unfortunately:

Nearly 20 years on, the results have been few and disappointing: even where nudges work, their effects are small, fade quickly and typically don’t scale up. And it turns out that by reinforcing the idea that social problems should be seen through the lens of individual behaviour, researchers have inadvertently provided ammunition for powerful business interests that oppose the old-fashioned (but effective) policy tools of tax and legislation that fundamentally change the system of rules and incentives that shape society – and could threaten their bottom line.

So, researchers created tools that don’t work that well, but which can be misused by corporations. (Not the first nor last time, I’m sure.)

The part about fading quickly caught my eye. I recall some time ago, maybe back in the 1980s, perhaps even earlier, there was a government-sponsored anti-smoking campaign. What I heard was that it was successful, but once the campaign ended, smoking rates rose again. (In fact, it seems pretty common now despite all the indoor restrictions.)

The article goes on to say:

The social problems we face have arisen not from changes at the individual level, given human psychology is surely largely constant over history. Instead, they have resulted from seismic systemic changes, such as mechanisation and electrification powered by coal, oil and gas over two centuries, or the rise of ultra-processed foods over the past 40 years.

Or as I have often said, we’re victims of our own species success.

Particularly striking is this paragraph:

If we are right, we might expect corporations fighting regulation to be particularly active in inventing ineffective but plausible-sounding individual level solutions. But wait – this has already happened. Consider the personal “carbon footprint”, to help us track our individual damage to the planet. Where did this idea come from? The UN? Greenpeace? No, it came from a huge ad campaign in the early 2000s from one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, BP.

Oof, dah. Yet another way that big corporations trick us. They are so not our friends or looking out for us.

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Bottom line, social media probably isn’t the smartest thing we’ve ever done.

More and more studies are finding that it isn’t the interweb that’s a problem, it’s social media, and FOMO, and belonging to some tribe.

Here’s an indicative test: Sit alone for one hour and just think. No music, no phone, no reading material, no screens of any kind (except the ones on your windows keeping bugs out). Can you do it?

Apparently, some would rather be subjected to electrical shocks.

Which I find shocking but ultimately not surprising.

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Stay thoughtful, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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