They don't know it. Almost nobody recognizes that hour while they're in it. So you can only ask the question ahead of time: if you knew, what would you stop caring about?
Eight hundred Americans, one question
What would I stop caring about if I only had one hour left to live?
Most likely, the new. The latest update, the next headline, the interesting stranger. When the end of life seems close, people turn toward the ones they already love, and researchers have measured that turn. A survey from the first months of the pandemic shows it happening at every age.
What did the researchers ask?
Who people would spend a free half hour with. In April and May 2020, during the first big wave of COVID-19 in the United States, more than 800 Americans between 18 and 93 answered that question in an online survey. Before that, they read a few plain lines about the new coronavirus.
Behind the survey were Li Jiang, who does research at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Laura Carstensen, a psychologist at Stanford University in California who has been asking versions of this question since 1990. This is how it read:
Imagine that you have half an hour of free time, with no pressing commitment. You have decided that you would like to spend this time with another person. Assuming that the following three people are available to you for an online chat, which person would you choose to spend that time with?
The three were a member of your immediate family you haven't seen recently, a recent acquaintance with whom you seem to have a lot in common, and the author of a book you've read.
One person you love. Two who could bring you something new.
Who did people choose?
The family member, at every age. In April, 66 percent of people between 18 and 35 picked that person, compared with 77 percent of people 60 and older. In May a new group answered, and it was 65 versus 72. Between young and old, the researchers found no real difference.
Why is that surprising?
Because young people usually choose differently. In earlier studies with versions of this question, their picks spread across all three people, and it was mainly older people who chose family. In the spring of 2020, people under 35 chose much like people over 60.
In the second survey, people could also write down why they chose as they did. Most wrote that family made them feel calm and protected. Younger people who named one person named their husband or wife most often.
When the vaccines came
Did it last?
No, and that is the second half of the finding. In March 2021, a few months after the first vaccines, the researchers asked a new group. Now 58 percent of the youngest group chose the family member, compared with 73 percent of those over 60. In June it was 51 versus 71.
Older people chose much as before. The young went back to the acquaintance and the author.
In the researchers' reading, the pandemic had put the end of life in view for people of every age, the young included. Once the vaccines made a long future seem likely again, younger people turned back toward the new.
Is it really about time, and not about age?
That is what Carstensen has been testing since 1990. Young people who imagined moving across the country alone soon, without family or friends, chose the familiar person, just as older people did. Older people who imagined a medical advance adding about 20 years to their lives stopped favoring the familiar person.
The choice follows the time people think they have left, more than their age.
The new, in your hand
Look at the two people who lost out in 2020. Someone new who seems a lot like you. The author of a book you've read. Fresh company, fresh ideas, a conversation that might go anywhere. That is roughly what you go looking for when you pick up your phone with nothing in particular to do.
I once wrote a short script about that pull. It starts with the feeling that you always need to be "on," as if you're missing something the moment you stop watching, responding and sharing. That feeling has a name: FOMO, short for fear of missing out. Then I turned the idea around, toward JOMO, the joy of missing out:
Not needing to be constantly updated.
Choosing the freedom of less.
So this is how I read the survey. When the end seemed closer, the first thing people let go of was the new, the very thing a quick check is for. No one had asked them to.
What is JOMO, the joy of missing out?
JOMO is FOMO turned around. With FOMO you keep checking, afraid that something is happening without you. With JOMO you let it happen without you, and you're relieved to. You decide what you're willing to miss, and you give your attention to whoever or whatever is in front of you.
Why would an ending change what I care about?
Because the new mostly pays off later. A new acquaintance or a new idea is an investment in a future you expect to have. When that future gets shorter, what counts is what already means something now. That is how Carstensen explains it, and the 2020 survey fits her explanation.
Here is the catch in the line I opened with. Nobody gets told which hour is the last. The person checking their phone right now is choosing the way anyone who expects plenty of time does.
To choose the way people did in 2020, you have to do it before you have a reason to.
Before you open the feed
What do I do the next time I reach for my phone?
Borrow the survey's question. When you pick up your phone with nothing in particular to do, ask yourself who you would spend a free half hour with. If it's someone you love, call or text that person instead of opening the feed. This question takes one name and the phone you're already holding.
The half hour in the survey was an online chat too. What people chose was the person on the other end.
What if the person I'd pick is someone I've lost touch with?
Then you're close to the choice most people made in 2020: family they hadn't seen in a while. A short message is enough to begin. You don't have to explain the silence or fill the whole half hour.
An hour with Do Not Disturb on
Before the Last Hour Experience begins, I ask you to turn on Do Not Disturb, the phone setting that silences calls and notifications. For about an hour, nothing new comes in: no update, no headline, no message from someone you barely know. Near the end, you write a farewell letter to whoever you choose. It is the survey's question once more, with the ending in view. Of everyone you could write to, who would it be?
Questions people ask. One of them is me.
Does this prove that people choose family when they think about death?
Not on its own, and the researchers say so themselves. They had no measurements from just before the pandemic, and they did not ask people how much time they felt they had left. The pattern does match what the psychologist Laura Carstensen found in earlier studies with versions of the same question.
Do older people choose family more often than young people?
Usually, yes. People over 60 chose the family member most often in every survey, between 71 and 77 percent of them. What changed in 2020 was that younger people chose the same way. In other studies, older people who imagined a longer future chose more like the young.
Is it wrong to want new people and new ideas?
No. The researchers see that pull as useful while the future is long, because new people and new knowledge pay off over years. It only becomes an issue when you spend a half hour on it that you would rather have given to someone else.
What if there's no family I want to talk to?
Then think of the closest person you do have. In her overview of the research, Laura Carstensen, a psychologist at Stanford University, describes that option as a close friend or a family member: someone who already means something to you. Pick the person you would most want on the other end.
Sources
COVID-19 reduced age differences in social motivation, the study by Li Jiang of George Washington University and Laura Carstensen of Stanford University, published in Frontiers in Psychology, a science journal that anyone can read online for free. The half-hour question, the three people, the four surveys from April 2020 to June 2021, all the percentages and the reasons people wrote down come from there.
Choosing social partners, the 1990 study by Barbara Fredrickson and Laura Carstensen, two psychologists, in Psychology and Aging, a journal about how people change as they grow older. In it, 380 people between 11 and 92 chose between someone familiar and someone new, with and without an ending in view.
Influence of time on social preferences, the 1999 study by Carstensen and two colleagues in the same journal, with people in the United States and Hong Kong. Older people who imagined a longer future stopped favoring the familiar person.
Carstensen's 2021 overview of her own research, published in The Gerontologist, a journal about aging. The move across the country, the 20 extra years and the close friend or family member are described there.
The lines about being "on" and the joy of missing out come from The Power of Missing Out, a short script of my own.