Psychological study suggests how we can all have more fun.
People enjoy simple things like popcorn, videos and water even more if they consume them in unusual ways.
Eating popcorn with chopsticks, drinking water by lapping it up like a cat and watching videos using ‘hand goggles’ all make familiar activities more fun, psychologists have found.
Dr Robert Smith, who co-authored the study, said:
“When you eat popcorn with chopsticks, you pay more attention and you are more immersed in the experience.
It’s like eating popcorn for the first time.”
For one study people either ate popcorn with their hands or with chopsticks.
Afterwards, they reported enjoying the experience more when using chopsticks.
They felt more immersed in the experience, the taste was better and they focused more on the food.
Dr Smith said:
“This suggests chopsticks boost enjoyment because they provide an unusual first-time experience, not because they are a better way to eat popcorn.”
In another study people watched videos either normally, or by forming hand goggles around their eyes and bobbing their heads up and down to the video.
Dr Smith said:
“They actually thought the video was better because the hand-goggles got them to pay more attention to what they were watching than they would have otherwise.
They were more immersed in the video.”
Many familiar activities can be spiced up in this way, said Dr Smith:
“It may be easier to make it feel new than you might think.
It is also a lot less wasteful to find new ways to enjoy the things we have rather than buying new things.”
The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (O’Brien & Smith, 2018).