Study participants typically did not enjoy spending 15 minutes by themselves

One participant shocked themselves 190 times. I'd say I'd concede curiosity is the main factor the first one or two times.

Of course the journal article isn't open access. But hey, Google.

"To see whether the difficulty with “just thinking” is distinctive to college students, in study 9 we recruited community participants at a farmer’s market and a local church. The par- ticipants ranged in age from 18 to 77 (median age = 48.0 years). As in study 7, they completed the study online in their own homes, after receiving instructions to do so when they were alone and free of any external distractions. The results were similar to those found with college students. There was no evidence that enjoyment of the thinking period was related to participants’ age, education, income, or the frequency with which they used smart phones or social media (table S2)."

So apparently it's not related to the prevalence of distracting technology - according to them. I would question the second (S8) 'at home' studies which only used 15 people per experiment. This was to test whether allowing participants to distract themselves had any effect.

It's a very short paper, only a couple of pages, so I think needs a bit more digging to actually find out whether it's true or not. The whole thing seems very speculative.

It isn't surprising that we are most happy when we are able to forget ourselves.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book 'Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience' talks about optimal experiences. He has found that humans are generally happy in what is termed as a 'flow' experience. Activities in which we immerse ourselves fully, temporarly forgetting ourselves, like programming, are flow experiences.

A few relevant quotes from the book:

"So loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self, and certainly not a loss of consciousness, but rather, only a loss of consciousness of the self. What slips below the threshold of awareness is the concept of self, the information we use to represent to ourselves who we are. And being able to forget temporarily who we are seems to be very enjoyable. When not preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are. Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundaries of our being have been pushed forward."

"The similarities between Yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of Yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body."

"When a family has a common purpose and open channels of communication, when it provides gradually expanding opportunities for action in a setting of trust, then life in it becomes an enjoyable flow activity. Its members will spontaneously focus their attention on the group relationship, and to a certain extent forget their individual selves, their divergent goals, for the sake of experiencing the joy of belonging to a more complex system that joins separate consciousnesses in a unified goal."

A perfect time for Pavlok: www.engadget.com/2014/07/04/pavlok-wearable/

People who meditate have way more control over when it ends, what they eat and when they turn off the light. Read up about psychological effects about long term solitary confinement and sensory deprivation that goes with it. The problem is not just the high opportunity cost. The experience can cause long term psychological issues.