I, like many other Americans, found myself up until nearly 4 am on Tuesday night watching the election results. If you asked me why, I would've told you that I felt it was a very important outcome and I wanted to know as soon as I could what was going to happen. I felt like this made sense, and as a result, I was one of the very first people to hear about the election results. The next morning I woke up, and saw many people saying they "woke up to the most ___ news of their life." I leave the blank because obviously, people felt different ways about the outcome, but for many the similarity was they felt the news was extremely important and they woke up to it. In my mind, I wondered why they did not stay up to see if it was so important to them.
The obvious answer here is that most people are not college students, and most college students do not have their first class on Wednesday at noon (though they should try it sometime). For me, the opportunity cost of staying up was very low, while for them it meant showing up tired to work or class, which can have real consequences. But I was not alone in staying up, given this BBC article titled: Staying up? Here's all you need to know about election night. Many others, like myself, stayed up for the important news.
I was also honestly bored watching the results come in. It is pretty slow, and they say the same things over and over again. I can not think of any utility that made it worth it to be low on sleep the next day, and miss a little bit of daylight. Was I acting irrationally? Was there more utility to be gained by going to bed early and checking my phone first thing in the morning? Did anyone else stay up late watching it and feel like they were right to do so? For now, I might just have to live with the fact that I may not be perfectly rational.
No comments:
Post a Comment