The shocking truth about how we need others

Maybe a month after the pandemic began, what had been obvious to psychologists forever became clear to the rest of us: We don't really like being alone.

Unless it's totally on our terms, perhaps. Maybe not even then.

You hear the claims all the time: "I wish I had more time alone." "I'd love to just go away and have no interference." "I wish I could get away from the world." "Brad, quit doing dumb things to get cheap laughs."

Most of those statements (75 percent of them) have the same basis: The thought that if only we could get away and be alone, things would be better. Solitude is desired. The fact that we say that while checking our smartphones every five minutes for social media updates should be enough evidence that it isn't true, but being shut in at home for weeks proved it.

We like interaction. Few of us want to be around people all the time, but most of us would go crazy if we lacked interaction.

I realize there are people who are fine being away from everyone. There's a reason some people are hermits or Miami Marlins fans. But even those people probably need some interaction.

We learned that from the pandemic.

Of course, the experience of our lifetimes should have taught us that. The fact that prisoners are punished by solitary confinement should have told us that. Putting kids in "time out" or making them stand in the corner when they misbehave should have taught us that.

A 2014 study at the University of Virginia should have proven that to us.

The 2014 study involved hundreds of volunteers who took part in "thinking periods," where they were placed in sparsely furnished rooms and were asked to . . . think. Some were told what to think about, others weren't. There were no cellphones, books or anything. Just them in a chair, thinking. Time in solitude.

They rated the experience and most gave it middling scores. They didn't love it, but it wasn't the worst thing ever.

Then they were put in a room, not given anything to think about and shown a button.

The button would shock them. A literal shock.

Before the test, most participants said they would pay money to avoid being shocked.

Yet . . .

Left alone for 15 minutes with nothing to do but think, 67 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women shocked themselves. They shocked themselves rather than sit there for 15 minutes, alone with their thoughts. They wanted to do something.

So they shocked themselves.

Humans!

Of course, there's something entirely unsurprising in the results: Men shocked themselves at a rate of nearly three times women did. Two out of every three men in the study shocked themselves out of boredom. In 15 minutes!

That tells you how much men don't like to think. And how much men enjoy toying with danger.

Really, the pandemic's early months shouldn't have been a surprise. The fact that we were told to stay home until further notice led to predictable results: Put 21st-century people in their homes and tell them to stay and pretty soon they'll get restless. They'll demand to go out and shop. They'll want sports back.

Heck, there were plenty of times in March and April that – had Mrs. Brad not been around to hear my dumb musings – I might have shocked myself to avoid boredom. There were no sports! We couldn't go out!

Dumb? Yes. But at least I know this: Among men, I'm in the majority.

That's the shocking truth.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

All my childhood expectations for death were overblown

While growing up in a time of disaster movies and three television networks, I thought there was a decent chance I'd experience a pandemic at some point.

Nothing like COVID-19, of course. More likely because some secret government lab allowed a virus to escape, this time one that couldn't be stopped by the Six Million Dollar Man or Jim Rockford (Of course, I presume that's not what happened in 2020.)

A pandemic was on the list of how I feared I would die, but it was low on the list. Because growing up in the Nixon-Ford-Carter era meant that there were plenty of horrible ways to die, displayed regularly at the theater or on TV shows. Turns out most of the ways don't really happen much, but you couldn't have convinced the 12-year-old version of me of that.

Now I realize I'm most likely to die in some boring, conventional way. But when I was young, there were a series of dramatic ways I expected to meet my demise:

Quicksand. It's become a cliche for people of my age group to refer to the amount of quicksand in childhood TV shows, but it's true. Here's what I learned: Quicksand can be anywhere and if you struggle, it only gets worse. The secret is to wait for a cowboy to come and pull you out by a rope. Note: I've never seen quicksand.

Rattlesnakes. If you walk in the forest – or in the desert or across the plains or around a campsite – there's risk of being bit by a rattler. At least that's what I thought: They're always ready to strike and if you get bit,  you have to suck the venom out immediately. Note: I've never seen a rattlesnake.

Army ants. Frankly, I never saw a movie with army ants, but my friends did, which was enough. Do army ants eat you? Carry you off? Put you in a prison camp? I don't know, but I know that army ants are a menace and they may come for us at any time. Note: I've never seen army ants.

Killer bees. These are a real thing and in my childhood, they were menacing. I spent a fair amount of time considering my escape plan if a huge swarm of bees worked together to kill me (by stinging me to death? That wasn't clear). When my sister and I crashed into a wasp's nest while sliding in a cardboard box down a hill (the 1970s!), we had a bad bee experience, so I didn't want killer bees. They seemed worse. Note: I've never seen killer bees.

A blow to the temple. A persistent legend of my childhood was that if someone hit you in the temple – your head, not a Jewish place of worship – you would die. A baseball could kill you if it hit you in the spot just in front of and above your ear. Apparently a dodgeball couldn't, because I was hit there by more than one dodgeball. Note: I've been hit in the temple and survived.

Dying in a dream. If you die in your dream – if you hit the ground while falling or get shot or drown – you die in real life. That's what everybody said in those days and I believed them. I had few scary dreams, so that wasn't a big deal, but still . . . it was something to worry about. Note: I've never died in a dream.

Now it's 2020. Decades after fearing killer bees and army ants and quicksand and rattlesnakes and being hit in the temple by a baseball, I'm living through a pandemic. While it's dangerous, it turns out that it's much easier than avoiding quicksand or a rattler while walking around a campsite. Note: I've now seen a pandemic.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

We make fun of the U.S. Postal Service, but we trust it

Perhaps President Trump picked the wrong organization to target a few weeks ago.

The United States Post Office, the butt of jokes for Americans for most of my life (complaints about stamp prices, lazy postal carriers, bureaucratic apathy, "going postal") was the most trusted brand in America, according to a survey done earlier this year by data intelligence company Morning Consult.

Yes.

The USPS came in first out of all the brands in America. More trusted the Apple. Most trusted the Microsoft or Amazon or Ford or Coke or Pepsi. More trusted than IBM or Walmart. More trusted than cultural favorite Chick-fil-A and Netflix.

And in what had to be very satisfying to the USPS, more trusted than UPS or FedEx.

The folks at Morning Consult asked Americans (more than 16,000 Americans were asked about more than 2,000 brands), "How much do you trust this brand to do what is right?" People could choose from "a lot," "some," "not much," "not at all," or "don't know." The brands were ranked on the percentage of respondents who said "a lot."

Forty-two percent of people said USPS can be trusted to do what's right a lot.

Which says something: Our most trusted brand has less than half of us trusting it to do what's right "a lot."

In case you're interested, Amazon was second, Google was third, PayPal was fourth and The Weather Channel was fifth.

Among the top 25 were some interesting brands, at least to me: Cheerios (ninth), Ziploc (13th) and Campbell's Soup (21st).

The author of the Morning Consult report pointed out that the most-trusted brands are more trusted than . . . Tom Hanks. Seriously. Only 34 percent of us trust Tom Hanks to do the right thing "a lot."

The Morning Consult study had some bad news for a lot of brands and people, including the media, which is trusted by only 8 percent of people (excluding the Daily Republic and me, presumably).

According to Morning Consult, only the respondent's primary doctor and the military rank ahead of the USPS when it comes to our perception that it will do the right thing "a lot."

But the results weren't absolutely clear. For instance, there was a generational split.

Among Gen Z members (ages 8 to 23), technology is trusted – Google, Netflix, Amazon and YouTube were the most trusted brands. Millennials (ages 24-39) ranked Google, USPS, Amazon and PayPal highest, while Gen-Xers (ages 40-55) ranked USPS, Google, Amazon and Hershey (!) at the top and Baby Boomers (ages 56-74) ranked USPS, UPS, Hershey (older people love Hershey!) and the Weather Channel at the top.

For all those rankings, there is a significant disclaimer: The younger the respondent, the less trust they had. Gen Z members were routinely 10 points lower on everything than baby boomers. Boomers are a trusting group.

Also, brands take time to build trust. Only two of the 100 most trusted brands (Android and YouTube) were formed after 2000, while three were formed before 1850. Forty-five of the top 100 brands were founded between 1926 and 1975, which makes me feel good because I was founded then, too.

So what's the point?

It takes time to be a trusted brand.

Younger people trust less

Even really trusted brands still are expected to do the right thing "a lot" by less than half of the population.

And the older you are, the more you trust Hershey. Even more than Tom Hanks.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

 

 

 

 

Protests, mattresses, cereal, ants: Emptying my notebook

It's Labor Day Weekend, which means we're at the unofficial end of the summer of the strangest year of our lives. It seems like we were commemorating Memorial Day just a few days ago, with the pandemic persisting and national anger over systematic racism.

Three months later, we're . . . still there, I guess. But we're three months closer to the end, if my math is right.

Right?

Please?

Well, it's time to empty the columnist's metaphorical notebook, which is actually a virtual notebook on my smartphone.

•••

Whether these months of unrest have moved us in a positive direction is open for debate – we may be no better off than we were in the spring – but we seemed to have learned at least one thing: The point of protest is to create discomfort.

For years, Americans complained as people protested or boycotted because it made things inconvenient. We said that those protesters would be fine if they didn't block traffic or if they didn't make it impossible to go to my favorite restaurant or if they didn't make it difficult watch a sporting event without thinking about politics.

It feels like we've finally accepted that inconvenience is one of the purposes of protest. Protest are partially to challenge those doing wrong and to force those of us on the sidelines to consider the issue and maybe get involved.

That we're complaining less about the inconvenience of protest and talking more about the subject is one sign of growth, I guess.

I guess.

•••

Having helped with three moves (from home to home) in the past year has made something ridiculously clear: Mattresses should have handles.

When I was a kid, our mattresses had handles. At least my twin-bed mattress had them: Plastic straps on the side.

Mattresses are hard to move. They're heavy, awkward and often bend. We pay hundreds of dollars for a mattress. How much would it cost to add a simple strap to hold when you move it?

I'd even pay extra for that. Wouldn't you?

•••

As long as we're talking about improving products, how about this: Breakfast cereals should come in resealable bags.

Instead, they come in plastic bags that are either too hard to open or don't close easily. Or both.

Want to be the breakthrough breakfast cereal company: Keep your boxes, but improve your bags.

You're welcome.

•••

The NFL season starts this week with no "bubble."

What are the odds that the league makes it through January without a coronavirus-caused shutdown?

I give the NFL a 60 percent chance of making it. Mostly because that league will power through some outbreaks.

•••

I recently had an ant invasion at my house and had to get some spray, which reminded me of one of my favorite work-related stories.

Several years ago at the Daily Republic, a veteran copy editor convinced a young colleague that ants were baby roaches. "Ants turn into roaches when they get older," he said. "Why else do you think they sell ant and roach spray? Roaches are adult ants."

I started laughing in the store when I remembered that.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.