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Do we undervalue routine?
The always-interesting Gretchen Rubin offers up this one-minute movie. I take the point to be that we under-appreciate the routine time we spend with our family and friends. Cherishing this time would give us better lives, it would seem. But why is this time so hard to cherish properly? Don't we want better lives? Are we passing up a free lunch?
In the movie the little girl says that she loved that time with her mother, namely doing the routines of taking the bus. The routines are an investment in later good memories.
Are our memories determined by the value of the average bus trip, or by the value of the marginal bus trip? (Of course to some extent it is a weighted average of both.) I suspect the fun of the marginal trip weighs fairly heavily in our backward-looking assessment of our routines. Most of the bus trips don't get noticed or perhaps they are even a drag. But whenever the pressures of the day occasionally slacked off, and the mother had more time with her daughter, that time seemed so wonderful.
So if you want good memories, should you make sure you don't spend too much time with your kids? If I ate chicken in mole sauce every day my memories of it wouldn't be so special. (Perhaps we measure peaks rather than computing the area under the integral?) But now the making and tasting of the mole stands as an occasion to remember. High total value equals low marginal value and perhaps poor memories. Low total value equals high marginal value and better memories. Of course if your total time with your kids is truly low, they will hate you and your marginal time with your kids will be crummy as well.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 6, 2008 at 09:33 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
Mr Cowen, you should blog about this(http://www.nypost.com/seven/02052008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_real_scandal_243911.htm?page=1). Bad lending regulations were probably a cause of the subprime crisis.
Regards,
Carlos
Posted by: Carlos at Feb 6, 2008 9:59:07 AM
When I first read the title I thought it said "Do we undervalue poutine?"
Yes, I thought. We do.
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 6, 2008 10:03:07 AM
This talk about producing good memories reminds me a bit too much of people who always go on busy, interesting holidays that lead to good memories and fine boasting afterwards, but who are too busy and tired during the holiday to really enjoy it.
While this makes a bit of sense for holidays, where the time spend remembering is much more than the holiday itself, it seems like a horrible way to plan your life. You spend many years with your kids, why not spend in the way that is most pleasant at the moment itself, instead of leading to the most pleasant memories afterwards?
Posted by: GreatZamfir at Feb 6, 2008 10:04:39 AM
GreatZamfir - are you suggesting I should do heroin with my children?
Posted by: alexa-blue at Feb 6, 2008 10:09:07 AM
I think it's been demonstrated pretty effectively that we remember the end of an experience and how it felt at the peaks. Kahneman talks in the Nobel Prize acceptance talk about a study of colonoscopies where they actually added a less-painful, but needless, few seconds on the end of the process and patients reported it as a less painful process overall than when they didn't add those few seconds.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2002/kahnemann-lecture.pdf
Posted by: PLW at Feb 6, 2008 10:15:38 AM
Two thoughts--we need a theory about how memories stick (I suppose Stephen Pinker can tell us) but perhaps repetition is crucial. Its the pattern of taking the bus we remember. Also, we don't know *which* memories stick. This takes a load off parenting.
Posted by: roland at Feb 6, 2008 10:18:12 AM
GreatZamfir - are you suggesting I should do heroin with my children?
If you think you and your children will enjoy that the most, and that it won't screw up your or their lives in the future, please go ahead... But seriously, of course you should have a 'sustainable' lifestyle that makes sure life is still good in the future, and having good memories is probably some part of a pleasant future. I just don't think it's a very major part of it, nor do I believe that planning your life around 'memorable events' will really make you happy in the short or long run.
Posted by: GreatZamfir at Feb 6, 2008 10:30:42 AM
You have to spend more times with your kids, otherwise your memories will be of things besides your kids. Her daughter didn't exclaim, "Look a dog!" everyday, but she was there everyday to hear it.
Posted by: 8 at Feb 6, 2008 10:33:39 AM
It seems to me that most of these sentimentally satisfying activities can only be recognized ex-post. I thus find the bus story dubious--did the parent *really* start thinking 'thank goodness, another day on the bus?'The story strains my credulity since it was evidently made after the bus rides ended.
Furthermore, it wasn't the bus ride itself, but rather the sighting of a dog that was the true cherished memory. Talking about the bus ride seems to miss the point--if I found a hundred bucks on the bus on day it would certainly be a cherished memory, but I'd only cherish the thought of future bus rides insofar as I expected future finacial luck.
Posted by: Jeff Holmes at Feb 6, 2008 11:07:03 AM
I think little children value routine more highly than adults. Surprise is not nearly as important to them as pleasures that are readily anticipated and that match expectations. (e.g. watching the same movie over and over or engaging in the same make-believe games with Dad at a certain time every week). Perhaps not a bad attitude for us to learn from.
Posted by: ajb at Feb 6, 2008 11:16:49 AM
So if you want good memories, should you make sure you don't spend too much time with your kids?
This would make sense, perhaps, if creating good memories was the only goal in raising your children, or maybe the dominant goal.
But there are many other things and many other things more important.
Posted by: Bob Montgomery at Feb 6, 2008 11:44:49 AM
ajb, good point about kids liking routine. I think much of it has to do with the fact that many things we consider pretty normal are still relatively new and exciting for children. Things we consider routine, like going to a shop or even watching a new show on TV, appear to be much more interesting to small kids. The downside is that they get tired from it much more quickly, and then they want to do something that is routine even to them, which ends up looking amazingly repetitive to us.
Posted by: greatzamfir at Feb 6, 2008 11:48:56 AM
I wonder how important happy memories are in creating present happiness. I wonder if people with generally happy dispositions tend to keep/recall/manufacture happy memories from their past, no matter what it is. And maybe less so with sad sacks. Perhaps the mind creates a set of memories consistent with its nature.
Posted by: burger flipper at Feb 6, 2008 11:54:42 AM
Happy memories such as the bus trips should be understood as a single series, not as a collection of individual events. In that way, the marginal value of bustrips compare will all other lifetime series, such as taking a shower or shaving.
Posted by: Mark Broski at Feb 6, 2008 12:18:28 PM
Tom, I think for the sake of our waistlines it is very important we do not let the poutine become routine.
Posted by: Sol at Feb 6, 2008 12:34:03 PM
If I ate chicken in mole sauce every day my memories of it wouldn't be so special. (Perhaps we measure peaks rather than computing the area under the integral?) But now the making and tasting of the mole stands as an occasion to remember.
I think this is a personality quirk. I eat a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich every day for lunch. And it's still delicious to me and an enjoyable experience. I also am the type of person who follows routines in general. I like them especially because the routinization of certain mundane tasks allows my mind to wander to more interesting things.
This is only a drawback when driving. I have a tendency to forget where I'm going and follow a route that I take all the time by default.
Posted by: Christina at Feb 6, 2008 12:35:57 PM
Hi Tyler,
This may not be the best place to pose a question like this. After all, more than 15 comments have already been made. So, I suppose I run the risk of diluting the quality of the comments. However I will take that risk.
For those non-economically minded of us who read your blog religiously, where can we find a good understanding of the basic economic principles? I realized as I read this post that I had no idea what Marginal Revolution even meant. Hence, I had no idea what "the value of the marginal bus trip" meant.
Please advise!
Your loyal reader,
Deron Bauman
Posted by: Deron Bauman at Feb 6, 2008 1:06:08 PM
This makes me wonder if there is room for the mundane in the new "Experience Economy." Some researchers are claiming that the next move for services is complete customization to create "experiences" for customers. Others say that the future of service is self-service, e.g. self check-out lines in the grocery store.
Perhaps a theory on the role of the mundane processes of services would be interesting to study.
Posted by: Mike Dixon at Feb 6, 2008 1:22:08 PM
Deron:
Very brief overview is at wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics
Most of what is discussed here is micro (basically why do people make the choices they make), but there is a healthy dose of macro (what is the state of the economy and how is it changing).
For a more detailed explaination find an old edition of Landsburg's Micro text and Mankiw's Macro texts.
Posted by: nelsonal at Feb 6, 2008 1:34:02 PM
What was that - a Hallmark card moment? Does it truly come as a surprise to you Tyler that it is the little things that make up a life? Does this come as such a revelation because you are a) young, b) a cloistered academic, c) a conservative economist or is there something else?
A bit of advice from an old, world weary non-academic and liberal financial guy, life is not contained in a model. And you probably can't enjoy it if you are studying it at the same time.
Posted by: Martin at Feb 6, 2008 1:57:59 PM
One problem with this analysis is that the word "routine" is meant to describe many things.
Some routines are ceremonies. We enjoy doing it in the same way every day/year. Like the comment above on the peanut butter. They bring a sense of continuity, anticipation, etc.
Some routines are cherished memories because are the indicator of a prior happiness circumstance that has nothing to do with the routine itself. I remember walking home with my wife after work. I did not like the walk then, but now it is a salient memory of the years we spent in London, and I cherish the memory of that.
Some other routines are just boring and monotonous. They are fogotten and then they fall out of the dataset.
I hope this comment is good. If it isn't, I hope we are already at the place in the comment thread where low quality comments are acceptable. ;)
Posted by: londenio at Feb 6, 2008 3:18:30 PM
If Gretchen Rubin weren't married with child(ren), I'd ask her to marry me. Word up.
Posted by: pizzle at Feb 6, 2008 3:58:42 PM
So if you want good memories, should you make sure you don't spend too much time with your kids?
No, the opposite. As the film shows, you have no way of knowing what small incident will spark a good memory. Therefore, you have to invest a great deal of time to garner those few memories.
It's like the complete works of Bach you recommend. He wrote hundreds of pieces to get the few dozen ones that really stand out. Could he have sat down and said "I'm only going to write a few dozen pieces, but they shall be outstanding"? Of course not. Are the few dozen worth the effort? Of course. Do the hundreds of lesser pieces also have their own merits? Obviously, or you wouldn't recommend spending a few hundred dollars on them.
Posted by: Ted Craig at Feb 6, 2008 4:40:23 PM
@ nelsonal
thank you!
Posted by: Deron Bauman at Feb 6, 2008 5:07:55 PM
I get a http 404 error when I try to access the "one-minute film". Any alternative sources?
Posted by: Olaf at Feb 6, 2008 6:25:56 PM
http://www.theyearsareshort.com/
TC forgot an http:// in the code so it directed it back to MR
Posted by: JB at Feb 6, 2008 7:29:50 PM
Tyler, you are overthinking this.
There is no quality time. There is just time spent with your children. You cannot reasonably predict what memories you and your children will share, and it's probably not worth the effort to try.
If you spend enough time, there will be enough memories.
[Like any advice, this can be carried to extremes. I don't think watching TV together is particularly likely to create family closeness, unless you are watching shows with a teenager and both making wisecracks. That's great fun. Or watching Michigan beat Ohio State, but I barely remember than happening lately.]
Posted by: ZBicyclist at Feb 6, 2008 11:54:38 PM
Diminishing returns: when we are spending such time regularly, the marginal value of additional such time is small. But once it is difficult or impossible to participate in that activity with that person, the marginal value of doing so again can become enormous. This would be true even if we had spent more such time when it was easy to do so.
Posted by: Cyrus at Feb 7, 2008 9:46:49 AM
freakonomics goes freakofreud...these high end memories most likely have nothing to do with the marketplace or even reality. As economists surely know, one day all parents will pass from this mammal existence and what's left will be fleeting memories, conjured largely in our grieving imagination. Spend time with your kids now because you and they will appreciate it now.
Posted by: Richard Schrader at Feb 7, 2008 2:41:22 PM
Posted by: 深圳翻译公司 at Feb 23, 2008 9:46:09 AM
