room and told to think. The only rules were they had to stay seated and not fall asleep. They were informed – specifically or vaguely – that they would have six to 15 minutes alone. The students were questioned when the time was up. On average, they did not enjoy the experience. They struggled to concentrate. Their minds wandered even with nothing to distract them. Even giving them time to think about what to think about did not help. In case the unfamiliar setting hampered the ability to think, the researchers ran the experiment again with people at home. They got much the same results, only people found the experience even more miserable and cheated by getting up from their chair or checking their phones. To see if the effect was found only in students, the scientists recruited more than 100 people, aged 18 to 77, from a church and a farmers’ market. They, too, disliked being left to their thoughts. But, the most staggering result was yet to come. To check whether people might actually prefer something bad to nothing at all, the students were given the option of administering a mild electric shock. They had been asked earlier to rate how unpleasant the shocks were, alongside other options, such as looking at pictures of cockroaches or hearing the sound of a knife rubbing against a bottle. All the students picked for the test said they would pay to avoid mild