Doing nothing

I've written before about the perils of leisure-like activities, those things that kind of seem like fun but really aren't that fun. Of course, most of us recognise that social news sites and other timewasting dopamine farms aren't great ways to spend your time, but we do it anyway. So why is this and how do we fix it?

Of course, entertainment as analgesia is probably familiar to anyone who, faced with an stray unpleasant memory, has found themselves typing "facebo-" into their web browser before they even realise what they're doing. But I think there's a more general principle that you can get from a two-axis analysis: timewasting is not very positive, but it's also not very negative. It's a reliable feeling of just enough reward to be worth it.

That might not seem particularly great, but "not very negative" can sometimes be quite a compelling proposition. If you're stressed, tired, or upset, you know you can quite quickly lose yourself in something that's reliably neutral. Neutral beats negative any day. Unfortunately, that easy escape from negativity can stop you from addressing its source. Worse still, sometimes important stuff is uncomfortable, and discomfort doesn't stack up well against neutrality.

But although the neutrality gets you in the door, I ultimately think it's timewasting's small, safe positivity that makes it really dangerous. Why take a risk on an uncertain positive outcome when you have a certain one right here, right in front of you, just a click away? To do something else, you don't just have to accept the negatives of the thing you could have, you also have to give up the positive thing you have already. That's a brutal combination.

Unfortunately, the time when you most need the awareness to avoid timewasting is the time you're least likely to have it. Everyone gets tired sometimes, or needs a break from thinking. Escapism can be healty when it gives you the distance to deal with something better. And who doesn't occasionally feel that just doing nothing might be the most attractive idea in the world right now?

I think there is an answer to be found in recognising that the "not negative" and "slightly positive" aspects of timewasting are separable. You can have not negative without the seductive safety of slightly positive. You can have a break without putting anything fun in that break to sweeten the deal, which robs the break of its compulsivity. Then the break only sticks around for long enough to you to feel the pull of something positive again.

In other words, perhaps the solution to doing nothing is, in fact, to do nothing. Actually nothing. Not staring at a screen, chatting to a friend or playing a game. Just embrace the lack of anything and see how it feels. At first, probably, relieving. Then, hopefully, boring. It's dangerous for nothing to be interesting.