4 Things Someone Should Do Studies On

4 Does Not Being Able To Sit Beside Friends Have A Measurable Effect On A Person's Enjoyment Of A Movie?

Let's say it's the opening night of a huge summer blockbuster. You and five friends show up to the theater minutes before the trailers start, because Brett thinks being on time is when you leave at the time you said you'd arrive, and Cynthia took a longer-than-expected dump. There are seats for all of you, but the place is packed and you won't be able to sit together. Rather than get tickets for a later time, you split up and sit where you can, even if it means sitting beside strangers.

If you have to sit separately -- and assuming that under ideal film-going circumstances you would all rate the film a 10 out of 10 -- will you all enjoy the movie as much as you would have if you had sat together? Does the disappointment of having to deal with some stranger's popcorn affect your perception of a film's quality?

People who are closed-in and put more value on their personal space would probably be annoyed that they might have to stifle their reactions since they're without the buffer of someone they feel comfortable releasing their emotions around. For a lot of us, it's not in our nature to be so open with our emotions around people we don't know. Would you be able to laugh with the same ease when beside a stranger? Could you feel comfortable screaming like a tortured goat during a horror movie jump-scare when you're flanked by random people?

Here's a twist on the study: You and your group of friends arrive early enough to get some great seats way in the back of the theater. Once the theater fills enough so that both seats on either side of your row of friends are occupied, would the friends at the ends (the ones who have to share one armrest with a stranger and another with a friend) like the movie less than everyone else?

In the end, there probably wouldn't be some massive drop-off in the perception of a film's quality for someone separated from their friends. But there would be a spike in the amount of harrowing forearm-to-forearm contact with strangers.

3 Are Super-Healthy Eaters As Productive, Or Do All Their Bathroom Breaks Hold Them Back?

My eating habits fluctuate between trying to get back down to my birth weight and periods where my eating is so obscene it needs to be pixelated and bleeped. I am intimately familiar with how the human body responds to both diets. I know that if I'm eating sweets and fried foods and drinking very little water, I'll have no energy and my bathroom visits will be irregularly timed and disastrous. When I eat my veggies, lean meats, and whole grains and fiber whatevers, and drink lots of water, I'm shitting and pissing in ways that are worthy of awards. The downside is that bathroom breaks are more frequent.

This leads to the study's objective: Is an energized healthy eater who takes many bathroom breaks per day any more productive than someone with less energy due to a poor diet, but as a result spends less time at the toilet and more time at their desk?

In this case, I would define a "healthy diet" as that person at work who eats two separate lunches of broiled cod and broccoli every day like there isn't Pizza Hut within walking distance. I would define an "unhealthy diet" as pretty much anything below that. But, specifically, someone who deep-fries fruit.

My meals can be a whole flopping basket of fish eaten Gollum-style, but if all that healthy eating is making my colon function so efficiently that it interferes with the time I need to spend working, then what's the point of eating well? Living longer? Feeling better? Yeah. Sure. Whatever, hippies.

This would be especially true if shitting and pissing less as a result of a diet made up of poor choices caused me to dedicate more time to work, but with the downside of always being on the verge of passing out from a cocktail of boredom and unearned exhaustion.

Both have upsides and downsides, and one will clearly kill you in the long run (which would lead to less work getting done), but both options share the same final question that demands answering more than any other: Will the ripple effect of the many poop breaks of a healthy and shit-stuffed workforce impact productivity in a way that will eventually affect a company's stock price?

2 Are Assholes Who Cut In Line More Successful In Life Than Those Who Wait Their Turn?

There's a simple logic at play: People who cut in line have balls. They're assholes, for sure, but they're assholes packed with balls -- big, pendulous, meaty balls. It's confidence. It's arrogance. It's self-centeredness. Whatever you label it, it falls under the same banner: They take what they want, when they want. Not only that: They have an almost supernatural ability to not give a shit about who they screw over by not bothering to wait their turn. It's a primal assertiveness that, I can only assume, is present in every other aspect of that person's life.

If it is present in a line-cutter's life, does this general "To hell with ya'll losers, I'mma get my froyo first" attitude lead to success in other aspects of their lives? The study would shed some light on the age-old question: Does being a dick take you further than being nice? It would examine that question from smaller daily actions on up.

Not all of these ruthless cutters are high-powered executives rocketing up the corporate ladder. It could be an Old Navy cashier whose selfish, impulsive grabs at what they most desire rockets them to managerial status faster than their co-workers, even if they aren't the most qualified. Assertiveness doesn't necessarily mean a person is good at anything other than forcing their way into things. But it can take people a long, long way. Or does it? Is there a long-term negative affect of being an impatient dick? Do people eventually catch on and learn to stop it? If so, is there some kind of ray gun or bludgeoning instrument we can use that best incapacitates them, thus allowing more people to succeed the right way?

Hey, this research has to lead to some real-world benefit. Might as well be identifying the best tools for bludgeoning line-cutters.

1 What Were The Crime Rates During Airings Of Bob Ross' The Joy Of Painting?

I don't know if international readers were able to see The Joy Of Painting in their countries, but if not, here's a quick lesson:

Bob Ross was a super-chill talking bush who, on his public broadcasting show that ran for 11 years, painted hundreds of variations of the same serene forest setting. They were like romance novel covers without Fabio. Add a splatter of red and it's the concept art for a teen slasher movie.

It was art instruction so hypnotic that if you watched it to learn how to paint, you never would have learned. You'd be in a near-vegetative state of tranquility by Ross' first mixing of midnight black and titanium white to create mountain peaks. The point wasn't the painting. The point was being transfixed by a man who was walking, talking Xanax.

The Joy Of Painting isn't on the air now, and that's a shame. It could be preventing countless deaths. Maybe. Truth is, we'll never know, because no one will probably ever look for the correlation between crime rates and airings of the art instruction series, let alone study it for any amount of time.

I'm not suggesting The Joy Of Painting was ever a mega hit that kept millions of people in front of TV rather than raising hell outside when it came on. But there must have been quite a few people who were going to do something rash and horrible, but then noticed The Joy Of Painting was on and forgot to kill that day.

I say this because I know firsthand what it's like to have the drive and determination to see something through, only to be derailed by that motherfucker Bob Ross. I wasn't about to pop out for a sec to rob a guy before dinner, but who knows how many bad choices I and many others never got the chance to make because we were tranquilized by a man making paintings fit for a dentist's office.

If it did happen (as I'm certain it did, by the thousands), I'll bet the criminal's life didn't change. They didn't leave behind the horrors that drove them to thoughts of murder or theft or whatever racketeering is. But in that moment, Bob Ross painting a tree next to a cabin was the tug of the leash around a dog's neck when it tries to veer off -- a course correction so powerful it obliterated all memory of the original intention. It's not even like they felt the urge melt away. It simply never existed.

So, in a sense, what I'm saying is: Someone should do a study on whether Bob Ross indirectly turned out to be a crime-fighting superhero.

Luis hasn't studied anything since freshman year of high school. You can find him on Twitter and Tumblr and now on his snazzy new Facebook page that he probably won't update very often but you should Like anyway.

If someone does do a study, they have to make sure it's legit. Check out a few studies we're not so sure about in 3 Reasons The 'Diet Soda Vs. Meth' Dental Study Is B.S. and Fluoride Lowers Your IQ: B.S. Headline Of The Week. But just to be safe, we're going to stop brushing our teeth with toothpaste and meth for a while.

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