A recent study out of MIT has definitively proven once and for all that if a man does not look it up right now, it’s going to bother him all night long.
“Men have often complained that if they don’t look up a piece of trivia or random nugget of information immediately, then it’s going to gnaw at them all night,” says Gwen Marsten, one of the researchers on the team. “Until now, those instances have always been anecdotal. Now, we have scientific evidence that yes, it is, in fact, going to bother them all night.”
The study, which took place over eleven weeks on the MIT campus, involved placing men in an observation chamber overnight. The scientists would then periodically enter the room and casually introduce trivia questions and semi-obscure cultural references to the test subjects.
“The questions had to exist in that sweet spot between being common knowledge and being too obscure. Stuff like what was the name of the actor who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day? Or, name all of Thorin Oakenshield’s band of Dwarves.”
After planting the trivia seed, the scientists would then watch from behind a one-way mirror to monitor the subject’s behaviors.
“Subjects who were given a phone looked it up 100% of the time, often followed by a loud, ‘Ah, I knew that,’ or, ‘It was right on the tip of my tongue’,” says Gwen.
Patients who were not permitted a phone endured a more unpleasant experience.
“The ones who couldn’t look it up had a rough time, I’ll admit,” Gwen says. “They tossed and turned all night. Some broke out in cold sweats. One test subject actually slammed the glass and yelled ‘There’s another one that starts with a ‘B’, right??!’ It was frightening.”
All in all, the study finally confirms what men have been saying for years. If they don’t Google something the moment it’s presented to them, it truly will ruin their night. We caught up with some of the wives and girlfriends of the experiment’s participants to get their reactions.
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Rosa McReady, wife of test subject Dave McReady. “All this time, I thought he was exaggerating. I was like, ‘You can let it go if you let yourself let it go.’ Turns out, he can’t. It’s biological.”
The research team, while happy with their findings, has already moved on to a new, more pressing study.
“We’re currently hard at work trying to determine whether men actually see twists in movies coming a mile away, as they often contend,” says Gwen. “Right now we’re leaning toward ‘no’ on that one.”
