This morning on the radio, I heard a trivia question where the hosts were having callers attempt to guess the answer. The question was "what is it we do the most that is the biggest waste of time?" The callers answers varied to really good guesses to some really stupid choices.
My very first thought was "making the bed." [For the record, now that I've had more time to think about it though, I probably would have said "responding to news articles online," which is an activity that I vehemently hate and nothing has made me think less of this country than them, and yes, it's the reason comments are not allow on my entries here.]
The first couple guesses were things like sitting at red lights, watching television, and texting, so one of the hosts got really annoyed about the lack of intelligence or forethought in these questions, so he started explaining the value in the time spent doing the wrong answers, i.e. stopping at a red light permits other cars to pass to prevent you from getting hit (although I understood the caller's point since I've spent plenty of time at a red light when there is NO traffic in either direction), television is a shared experience to discuss the next day at work, and texting is a form of communication.
The next guess was "cleaning house," and the host explained that the end result is a clean house, so it wasn't a waste of time.
The very next caller was "making the bed," to which the same host said, "ok, that one is a waste of time."
Eventually, we learned the answer was "playing video games," which immediately sounded like a lame answer to me but I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I was offended, and it definitely wasn't that I'd call my "Virtual Ego Boosts" worthy of the time invested. But what really bothered me about that answer is that not enough people spend time playing video games for it to be called the "biggest waste" of time. Only a handful of the population play video games in the first place. I thought we were guessing at the one activity on which most people waste a lot of time.
The hosts said that the answer was determined by a recent study, so I think that study was a bigger waste of time than video games themselves. It seemed to be a very poorly construed study if that was their final determination.
Especially since another caller proffered the best guess at the question: driving around looking for a closer parking spot! I think he hit the nail on the head. How many times do you go up and down rows looking for the closest parking spot, and then if you find a great spot, you walk into whatever store and continue to walk around some more! What exact benefit is there to looking for a better spot? I'm not saying it isn't nice to have, but I've seen cars in parking lots look like sharks circling around in water.
If you've read any articles about easy ways to burn more calories in your regular day, one of the items that universally appears is parking farther away from your destination. That little bit of difference probably saves more time than it wastes.
I commend that caller for getting the right answer when the (presumably) professional study failed to deliver!
