Two minutes of doing nothing.
Can you spend two minutes alone with your thoughts, or will you press a button you know is unpleasant?
Original study
- Wilson, T. D., Reinhard, D. A., Westgate, E. C., Gilbert, D. T., Ellerbeck, N., Hahn, C., Brown, C. L., & Shaked, A. (2014). Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind. Science, 345(6192), 75–77. Source
- Fox, K. C. R., Thompson, E., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Christoff, K. (2014). Is thinking really aversive? A commentary on Wilson et al.’s “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind”. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1427. Source
- Buttrick, N., Choi, H., Wilson, T. D., Oishi, S., Boker, S. M., Gilbert, D. T., et al. (2019). Cross-cultural consistency and relativity in the enjoyment of thinking versus doing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(5), e71–e83. Source
- Havermans, R. C., Vancleef, L., Kalamatianos, A., & Nederkoorn, C. (2015). Eating and inflicting pain out of boredom. Appetite, 85, 52–57. Source
- Yusoufzai, M. K., Nederkoorn, C., Lobbestael, J., & Vancleef, L. (2024). Sounds boring: The causal effect of boredom on self-administration of aversive stimuli in the presence of a positive alternative. Motivation and Emotion, 48(2), 222–236. Source
- Hatano, A., Ogulmus, C., Shigemasu, H., & Murayama, K. (2022). Thinking about thinking: People underestimate how enjoyable and engaging just waiting is. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(12), 3213–3229. Source
Our adaptation
A light adaptation of the 'Just think' experiment of Wilson et al. (2014). First a half-second unpleasant sound at a safe level is played, rated from 1 (very unpleasant) to 9 (very pleasant), and the participant says whether they would pay never to hear it again. Then they spend two minutes alone with their thoughts: there is no clock on screen, only a single button that plays the same sound again when pressed. Finally they rate how enjoyable the two minutes were (1–9) and whether they did anything else meanwhile.
Differences from the original study
- A short sound replaces the electric shock and 2 minutes replace 15.
- The setting is the participant's own screen, not a lab.
- The payment question is yes/no rather than a specific amount.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
sound_rating | integer | Pleasantness of the sound (1 very unpleasant – 9 very pleasant). |
pay | integer | Would pay never to hear the sound again (1 = yes). |
presses | JSON | Button press times (ms from the start of the two minutes). |
away | integer | Time away from the tab (ms). |
cheat | no | bit | yes | Did something else during the two minutes (no | bit = a little | yes). |
enjoy | integer | Enjoyment of the two minutes (1 not at all – 9 very much). |
n | integer | Number of presses. |
any | 0 | 1 | Pressed at least once. |
first | number | Time of the first press (ms). |
bins | JSON | Presses in 10-second bins (12 bins). |
clean | 0 | 1 | Did not leave the tab for more than 3 seconds and did nothing else (1 = clean). |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server requires the ratings, the payment answer, the press times (0–121.5 s) and the answers to the questions. Only plays with clean = 1 are used in the crowd comparison.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
This experiment has no leaderboard score. The crowd result is the share pressing at least once and the enjoyment ratings.
Version notes
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.