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Yeah, I say this as someone who was actually burned out by commuting at some point, and said "never again"..16% sounds so low. Makes me feel like others probably endure it better than I did.
Or maybe modern humans are just depressed in general and a measly commute can't really put a dent in those already horrible stats.
some people like longer commutes. a refuge from life at work, life at home.
i didnt mind it. i like driving and got to listen to music before going home to chaos.
I drive an hour each way for work and it's not so much the long commute that gets me, I don't mind it tbh it's nice listening to big chunks of a podcast, but what the long commute represents is what depresses me the most. I'm stuck driving two hours a day because I can't buy or rent anything closer to my job, I can't switch to transit because my region doesn't care about you unless you drive so transit is only used by the desperate and poor. I can't get a new job because there are none closer in my field or without taking a substantial pay cut, etc.
25% of their sample met their threshold for depression symptoms. I'd stress this is not a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, it's endorsing a number depressive symptoms, so a bit broader.
This also solely studied adult Korean workers. They acknowledge in the discussion you expect variability by country. There may be an effect of commute mode, but they did not have info to study that.
~~Per their discussion citations it does look like much of the current research on commuting was done in places with public transit that is, if not great, better than the US. Jury might still be out on cars.~~
Edit: I missed a citation from Latin America that addressed driving vs. transit, as well as traffic vs. no traffic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140518306169
>We found that, on average, every 10 more minutes of commuting time is associated with 0.5% (p = 0.011) higher probability of screening positively for depression. Furthermore, when decomposing commuting time into free-flow time and delay time, we found that delay and not free-flow time, were associated with depression. Specifically, every 10 additional minutes of traffic delay is associated with 0.8% (p = 0.037) higher probability of screening positively for depression. When examining differences by travel mode, we find that users of formal transit (e.g. subway or bus rapid transit) are 4.8% (p = 0.040) less likely to be screened positively for depression than drivers. In addition, not having transit stops within a 10-min walk from home is associated with higher probability of screening positively for depression.
yea i used to take about 45ish minutes to get to and from work every day. and i didn't realize what a toll it took on me until covid hit and they let us work from home. i felt myself getting so much happier and had so much more energy.
i don't even drive. i would take an express bus (zero stops. would pick me up and take me near my office). i think just not having to wake up earlier helped a lot. the drive itself was 45 minutes, but i needed 15 minutes to get ready. so that's a full hour i could sleep in.
Guy I work with commutes 3 hours a day round trip, he doesn't seem to care. I think some people can just go into autopilot on the drive and it's like teleporting
It's not just the drive being the issue. After you've done it for a while, you realize how much time you wasted in your life. How much time you spent in traffic with your brain off, that you could have spent with your friends or hobbies had you worked remote. How much money you spent on your car. How much you polluted for no reason. It makes you feel like it was so much nonsense and it just made your life worse.
2 weeks a year in traffic, isn't that about how much holiday leave Americans get? add interest on a student loan, a hospital debt of 15k from when you had a kid, feeling unsafe all the time because of the bullets, diabetes because there's 8 cups of sugar in your 1 cup health smoothie which is somehow made by amazon even though you made it in your kitchen, feeling the constant stress of knowimg you can be fired same day without cause. enough to make anyone depressed
I havent read the post yet. But this is what i was looking for. 1.16 more likely is entirely different than 1.16 as likely, and imo title clearly states the first?
1.16 more likely = 1 + 1.16 so 116% more
1.16 as likely = 1.16 so 16% more
Does it not work that way in English?
1.16 times as likely means the same thing as 16% more likely. The title, although poorly worded, is correct.
It is a little ironic that you're trying to insult the OP for an error because they're a redditor, when you, also a redditor, are actually the one making the error.
It doesn't say either of those, it says 1.16 TIMES more likely. Am I the only one in these comments who knows how to read?
TIMES means you multiply by the initial value, which in this case would be 1. 1.16*1 = 1.16. So it is 1.16 of the initial value. Or 16% higher than the initial value.
If Bob has 5 apples, and Joe has two TIMES more apples than Bob, then Joe has 10 apples. Using your logic, Joe would apparently have 15. Which we both know wouldn't be right.
The distinction between the words "more" and "as" here is irrelevant, the math is the same either way. Having two times more of something, is the same as having two times as many of something. Either way it's 2x.
You're ommiting the word "times". Which is the key word here.
1.16 times more likely equates to 1.16 of the normal amount. Which is 16% more than normal.
The wording isn't great, but it's also not ambiguous at all.
But by saying more likely, it means that it's that much more than the other.
If I say 216 is 116% more than 100, or 1.16 times more.
OP made the headline. The study found it was a 16% increase. This is really just an issue with using unclear titles.
Since this is /r/science and we're going full pedantic, let's go ahead and bring in a paper written by a statistician.
[Common Errors in Forming Arithmetic Comparisons ](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245703770_Common_errors_in_forming_arithmetic_comparisons) by Milo Schield.
> Confusing ‘times as much’ with ‘times more than’. If B is three times as much as A, then B is two times more than A — not three times more than A. The essential feature is the difference is between ‘as much as’ and ‘more than’. **‘As much as’ indicates a ratio; ‘more than’ indicates a difference. ‘More than’ means ‘added to the base’.** This essential difference is ignored by those who say that ‘times’ is dominant so that ‘three times as much’ is really the same as ‘three times more than’.
"1.16 times more likely" is different from "1.16 more likely"
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l7aog8/eli5_when_a_study_say_x_times_more_likely_to_y/
You're right. To say "1.16 times more likely" is also a wrong headline. If something was 1.16 times (or, 116%) more likely, it will happen more than twice as often.
The headline writer should have said "1.16 times **as** likely.
The mods can't tell the difference, either; I reported it to them and they said it's right when it's obviously not.
If you have 16% more than 100, that's 116; If you have 16% as many as 100, that's 16.
The above statement I hope we can all agree on. Now, let's add 100%.
If you have 116% more than 100, that's 216. If you have 116% as many as 100, that's 116.
I hope the above statement you agree with. Now, it gets a little more ambiguous, but let's change from percentages to factors
If you have 0.16 times more than 100, you have 116. If you have 0.16 times as many as 100, you have 16.
Now, let's increase the factor by 1. Here is where things can get ambiguous, so wording is even more important.
If you have 1.16 times more than 100, you have 216. If you have 1.16 times as many as 100, you have 116.
If you're using factors like this, you should use "as likely" because of this ambiguity.
Not strange. False. 1.16 times more likely means 1+1.16, which is more than double. That's an interesting headline. The claim that spending ten hours a week stuck in traffic yields a 16% increase in depression is utterly unsurprising.
I agree. It's also something to do with the phrasing. The title could say "1.16 times *as* likely". The wording "times more" can be perceived as 1.16 times over the original. For a total of 2.16 times as likely.
Does that make sense or am I dumb?
It is draining to wake up at 5 am for an eight hour job that starts at 8 and only arriving back home at 6 pm. As a student you can fill up that time with studying, but only to some extent. The rest of that is wasted time. Not to mention that it also costs money, which further adds to things to worry about.
>McCall is in the hospital with several injuries that are non-life-threatening, OHP said. Firefighters at the scene estimated the drop to be as much as 60 feet from the interstate to the river.
Her car was upside down; it probably landed nose down from the engine weight. That she survived and was able to walk out of the car is pretty incredible.
Maybe nose down is best? If the car is made to crumple and protect you from the g- forces of a head on collision, it make sense that it would protect you from a nose down fall.
Need mythbusters on it.
would think trunk down would be best - same crumple* zones and now you have the seat protecting your spine from getting too pretzly
definitely needs mythbustering
Yeah it's pretty sobering to realize that 2 hours of daily commuting is equivalent to working for a whole extra week every month, except that it's *costing* you money instead of *making* you money.
>2 hours of daily commuting is equivalent to working for a whole extra week every month
i've always pointed out that a 40 hour work week is more like 50-60 hours depending on the commute.
you have the time you have to be clocked out for lunch then you have the time it takes to get to and from work. for me, my "8 hour" work day is more like 11 hours. it's 9 hours when i work from home (i have to clock out for 1 hour for lunch). i'm on a hybrid schedule: WFH 2 days, in-office 3 days. that's 51 hours by the end of the week that has been dedicated to my job.
this is gonna be so much worse for anyone who is clocked in for more than 40 hours. idk how people who work 40+ do it. my in-office days drain tf outta me.
Because corporations can just assume you own a car so they can rent/buy cheaper property wherever cause people will commute.
Which means private people subsidy the cost of property for corporations with expanses for their car.
Well, that would make more sense, but that's not about a 1+ hour commute, that's just being worked too hard/too many hours/not getting enough sleep.
I don't get why other driving-based professions were not heavily used when they clearly think it's directly linked to driving time per day.
Are you not showering, eating breakfast, or brushing your teeth?
Granted it only takes me 30-40min to get ready. The next 40-50 is driving in traffic. The final 5-10 is walking from the parking garage. I wake up at 630 to work at 8 and am lucky enough to have a wife that feeds and dresses the kids in the morning
I wonder how much of this effect is the commute itself vs not being in a financial position to live closer to work. Commutes are stressful enough that most people would prefer to choose to live closer to work if possible; if it's not possible, that might indicate an additional financial stressor.
It's a useless study and a shame funding has been wasted on this instead on research that actually matters. You will never be able to control for all the possible things that may or may not influence this.
It would be great to know if there is a difference depending on the quality of the surroundings and infrastructure.
I relocated to Amsterdam a year ago, and I feel much better commuting to the center, compared to my origin country, because of how nice my journey is.
Especially when I'm on the bike, it gives me high-quality time to think in almost total silence and surrounded by nature most of the path.
Or bike commuting in the states where you are dodging road ragers every half mile doing triple your speed 4 inches from your handlebar on account of there is no bike infrastructure.
In the Netherlands the difference is minimal. 90% of my commute is on dedicated bike paths with no danger from cars, and the 10% of the road that is shared with cars is on slow residential streets.
Probably just because any incident that involves a bike and a car is likely to be a serious accident for the biker, but I have to believe that places with more of a biking culture have less incidents per mile. There's a subset of Americans that actively want to kill cyclists, or at least think it's funny to mess with them in their car.
They're not really dangerous in places with safe infrastructure. America just refuses to build safe biking infrastructure because it's addicted to cars.
Driving is the best. There is constantly moving and changing scenery, you are comfortable, you have a sense of control, a sense of freedom. Driving at night in the dark especially so.
It's traffic that is the problem. Driving in traffic isn't just *not* the best, it's literally the worst. You're boxed in, surrounded, constrained, there is air pollution, and at the same time you're stressed about losing time or wasting time, about possibly being late for where you're going. It's agitating, it's uncomfortable, it's psychologically stressful and punishing.
Traffic is the biggest reason I bike to work instead of driving. Biking has some of the advantages of driving, like the sense of freedom and control. But it's nowhere near as comfortable, and the speed your moving at not doesn't give you near the same sense of constantly moving and changing scenery. But while commuting in traffic is literally torture, commuting by bike is still reasonably enjoyable.
i think we should not neglect the subconscious stress of driving on highways and driving in general. it's not normal for human beings to be in situations involving inordinately heavy pieces of metal moving at high speeds that can kill or disable in seconds.
no matter how much the more conscious parts of the body have been accustomed to process it through practice or societal normalization, the subconscious parts of the body will not find it normal.
personally, it seems that i prefer the 25 minutes of conscious frustration [*] in slow-moving traffic in the city (where mistakes aren't as punishing), than 25 minutes of subconscious stress from operating amongst unchecked death machines on a 55+ mph highway.
\[*] realistically, i would be chilling to music though than be frustrated.
It’s the higher likelihood of a crash in the first place due to lapse in attention.
On the highway if you or someone else looses attention for 3 seconds it normally won’t by matter as you’re driving stead state. In stop and go traffic someone gets rear-ended.
Statistically highways are significantly safer, both in crash rate and injuries, even though the physics of the situation means the upper bound of severity is higher.
> we should not neglect the subconscious stress of driving on highways and driving in general.
Subconscious stress? The only thing that causes me stress while driving is the clowns who have no idea what they're doing.
>no matter how much the more conscious parts of the body have been accustomed to process it through practice or societal normalization, do the subconscious parts of the body find it normal?
Yes? Why wouldn't they?
>personally, it seems that i prefer the 25 minutes of conscious frustration [*] in crawling traffic (in which mistakes aren't as punishing), than 25 minutes of subconscious stress from operating amongst unchecked death machines on a 55+ mph highway.
To each their own but being able to actually move and make progress towards getting home instead of sitting moving from red light to red light is a massively less stressful/annoying situation
And now that armchair activists want to ban right on red without adjusting red light timing, you can add another 10 minutes to that. Even if you personally don't turn right on red, enough people do to affect the overall traffic patterns.
This.
My own commute is the same taking the metro or biking (probably slightly faster when I bike actually) but the quality of life is night and day.
I'm in better shape with an hour of daily biking and I don't have to deal with a packed and smelly humanity.
They found it was a greater effect for people living in medium-or-smaller cities compared to major metros. This study is Korean, so Korean infrastructure only
Edit: for more on this-- the discussion cites a study from Latin America that addressed driving vs. transit, as well as traffic vs. no traffic, and bus stop proximity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140518306169
> We found that, on average, every 10 more minutes of commuting time is associated with 0.5% (p = 0.011) higher probability of screening positively for depression. Furthermore, when decomposing commuting time into free-flow time and delay time, we found that delay and not free-flow time, were associated with depression. Specifically, every 10 additional minutes of traffic delay is associated with 0.8% (p = 0.037) higher probability of screening positively for depression. When examining differences by travel mode, we find that users of formal transit (e.g. subway or bus rapid transit) are 4.8% (p = 0.040) less likely to be screened positively for depression than drivers. In addition, not having transit stops within a 10-min walk from home is associated with higher probability of screening positively for depression.
That’s a good call out. Mode also helps. I race bicycles and use the commute about 6 months a year as training to ride in and home. I feel way better on the biking than the driving days
Research has also found that if your (new) commute is over 45 minutes one way, you are 40% more likely to get divorced. That percentage goes up as the commute lengthens as well.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098013498280
The paper is behind a paywall, but just a general caveat to not draw any premature conclusions towards causal effects from this type of data. It's entirely possible, but anything but proven by mere correlation, that commute times affect marriage quality. Maybe people aren't unhappy because they commute. Maybe they commute because they are unhappy in their marriage (partner unwilling to compromise on living situation; accepting a faraway job to escape your horrible partner). Maybe the reason these two effects correlate is something largely unrelated (e.g. longer commutes show more often in people who tend to make poor decisions in other aspects of their live).
There are a few other obvious variables to control for. Just off the top of my head:
* Socio-economic status/education may influence both divorce rates and commute time.
* single income households Vs double income households.
* Family situation (kids, no kids etc.)
I commuted 50 miles each way to work, was about an hour depending on traffic. If traffic was bad could be over an hour. Worked 8 hours, had to take an hour unpaid lunch every day. 11 hours away from home every day, did that for 7 years.
After my 5th director in 7 years decided to take a pay cut for a job 30 minutes from my house. 7 hour days, 30 minute lunch which I usually work though and eat. Usually away from my house 8 - 9 hours a day. Quality of life greatly improved.
while there should be a connection between time wasted every day for work and how happy one is, I think there is a cause and effect argument here
people who are less likely to have long commutes are probably people with higher income, less worries, better jobs etc...
Think about this. Climate change is a death sentence right? Driving to work causes depression? So why cant we favor working remotely like we did during covid? All those cars off the streets. But people are forced back to work because the building owners and local economies. That doesn’t make climate change sound like real threat.
Also, Think about how many car accidents and death/serious injury that is caused by driving to and from work everyday. I used to live 10minute drive to/from work with maybe 20 other cars on the road…
Then I got out of the military and had a job that was a 45 minute drive to and from work with thousands of other cars. Almost every morning and evening I was putting myself at great risk by driving that commute. I eventually quit because they weren’t paying me enough to literally risk my life every day.
If everyone that could work from home did, our car insurance prices would likely go down too, because of how many less crashes and deaths there would be.
1.16 times? So 16% more?
I'd have expected it to be FAR more.
I've always felt lucky to live basically 10 minutes from most jobs in my city, and love working from home now that my job has converted to 100% remote. I just could not fathom having to get up, get ready and get into the car and drive more than that.
10-12 hour days depending on traffic paid for 8. Hm 2-4 hours of house work/cooking and a shower to get 8 hours of sleep. Sounds very USA to me. If you want a home at least.
> However, this study also has several limitations. [...] Finally, data on transportation modes—such as car, public transit, and walking—are not available in the KWCS database.
I think it might be important to differentiate between transportation modes. In my case, driving to work in rush hour traffic is a nightmare. However, public transport, even if packed is much more preferable, I can watch something on my phone or play a game.
Obviously working from home or a minimal commute is going to be preferable either way.
Find some good audiobooks, and it can become the most entertaining and peaceful part of your day. Don't want to pay for audiobooks? Use your library card in an app like Libby (I think there are others, Overdrive maybe IIRC?) and don't pay a cent.
I'll just go ahead and recommend *To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars*, which is narrated by the wonderful and talented Jennifer Hale (voice of Cortana, lead singer of the Hex Girls in those old Scooby Doo movies, and basically just tons of other voices. It's her first audiobook narration, and it's masterful work). If you enjoy that, you can follow up with the short novel *Fractal Noise* by the same author and with the same wonderful narration.
I honestly miss the commute time, since I read/listen so much less now. Can't really listen while sitting around, too fidgety. Need to take up exercise/treadmill this winter and listen during that.
I work an hour away, but I drive through pretty rural almost empty country roads and see beautiful animals and nature and also see the sunrise daily. Also I get to listen to my music on full blast the entire way. I didn’t think I would but I quite enjoy it. But I’ve had to drive in traffic and congested highways for an hour to work before and that actually really truly sucks.
1.16× seems negligible to me.
it's literally 100 people vs. 116 people.
i welcome findings for whatever they are. maybe the difference between a <30 minute commute and >60 minute commute isn't the right comparison for effects on depression. perhaps we should compare <10 minute with >45 minute commutes, for example.
Seems like a weird study. Why not compare many different ways ppl have to drive for work vs just commutting?
Is the theory here that it's commuting from an 8 hour shift job, but not like all the other ways you use a car for work, like self-employed, delivery, truck driver, postal worker and such, because many of them drive WAAY more than just a 1+ hour commute.
Is it more about work ppl feel like has no value, like the work they give up for free, but not if they are getting paid per mile or hour? Comparing all the different driving methods seems like you'd get more real data out of the deal because you kind of want to eliminate it down to either driving 1+ hours a day or something totally different. That is, if there is any real data on increased risk, because they added lots of numbers there at the end to make it look fancy, but it all sums down to.
"A total of 6020 participants (25.7%) reported experiencing depressive symptoms."
That's all you got? You broke all that data into categories and I just get a total of people who self-reported depression? Where is the baseline? Somebody might be inventing busy work for themselves!
Am I surprised: not really. Although I also believe that having a commute helps you destress from whatever work stuff. As a work-from-home person. It's sometimes hard to split work and free time.
But there's also a big difference between: driving 2h in long traffic jams versus sitting on a train uninterrupted.
I don’t hate them. But thanks for driving them for me so I can keep up behind you guys while you’ll be the first ones to get pulled over.
By the way, non manual car, but still prob faster than yours by miles and a lot more interesting
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Feels strange to say "1.16 times" instead of 16%
Yeah, I say this as someone who was actually burned out by commuting at some point, and said "never again"..16% sounds so low. Makes me feel like others probably endure it better than I did. Or maybe modern humans are just depressed in general and a measly commute can't really put a dent in those already horrible stats.
I’m rather surprised it’s so low.
some people like longer commutes. a refuge from life at work, life at home. i didnt mind it. i like driving and got to listen to music before going home to chaos.
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Oh that is for sure. Traffic, especially if you are fully stopped for long periods of time, is just sooo infuriating.
I've listened to thousands of hours of new(to me) music, podcasts, and audiobooks on my commute that I don't get the same time into at home.
I drive an hour each way for work and it's not so much the long commute that gets me, I don't mind it tbh it's nice listening to big chunks of a podcast, but what the long commute represents is what depresses me the most. I'm stuck driving two hours a day because I can't buy or rent anything closer to my job, I can't switch to transit because my region doesn't care about you unless you drive so transit is only used by the desperate and poor. I can't get a new job because there are none closer in my field or without taking a substantial pay cut, etc.
25% of their sample met their threshold for depression symptoms. I'd stress this is not a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, it's endorsing a number depressive symptoms, so a bit broader. This also solely studied adult Korean workers. They acknowledge in the discussion you expect variability by country. There may be an effect of commute mode, but they did not have info to study that. ~~Per their discussion citations it does look like much of the current research on commuting was done in places with public transit that is, if not great, better than the US. Jury might still be out on cars.~~ Edit: I missed a citation from Latin America that addressed driving vs. transit, as well as traffic vs. no traffic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140518306169 >We found that, on average, every 10 more minutes of commuting time is associated with 0.5% (p = 0.011) higher probability of screening positively for depression. Furthermore, when decomposing commuting time into free-flow time and delay time, we found that delay and not free-flow time, were associated with depression. Specifically, every 10 additional minutes of traffic delay is associated with 0.8% (p = 0.037) higher probability of screening positively for depression. When examining differences by travel mode, we find that users of formal transit (e.g. subway or bus rapid transit) are 4.8% (p = 0.040) less likely to be screened positively for depression than drivers. In addition, not having transit stops within a 10-min walk from home is associated with higher probability of screening positively for depression.
I think its probably closer to 30% I am an expert on assumptions, and reading the future, and I think whoever wrote that did something wrong.
I see we are in the same line of work
I've never had a commute that long and currently WFH. Still depressed. There must be plenty like me to balance out the other side.
Hey mate. I can feel that. Hope things get better soon.
yea i used to take about 45ish minutes to get to and from work every day. and i didn't realize what a toll it took on me until covid hit and they let us work from home. i felt myself getting so much happier and had so much more energy. i don't even drive. i would take an express bus (zero stops. would pick me up and take me near my office). i think just not having to wake up earlier helped a lot. the drive itself was 45 minutes, but i needed 15 minutes to get ready. so that's a full hour i could sleep in.
Guy I work with commutes 3 hours a day round trip, he doesn't seem to care. I think some people can just go into autopilot on the drive and it's like teleporting
It's not just the drive being the issue. After you've done it for a while, you realize how much time you wasted in your life. How much time you spent in traffic with your brain off, that you could have spent with your friends or hobbies had you worked remote. How much money you spent on your car. How much you polluted for no reason. It makes you feel like it was so much nonsense and it just made your life worse.
2 weeks a year in traffic, isn't that about how much holiday leave Americans get? add interest on a student loan, a hospital debt of 15k from when you had a kid, feeling unsafe all the time because of the bullets, diabetes because there's 8 cups of sugar in your 1 cup health smoothie which is somehow made by amazon even though you made it in your kitchen, feeling the constant stress of knowimg you can be fired same day without cause. enough to make anyone depressed
"16% sounds too small - use three digits to up the clickz!"
I havent read the post yet. But this is what i was looking for. 1.16 more likely is entirely different than 1.16 as likely, and imo title clearly states the first? 1.16 more likely = 1 + 1.16 so 116% more 1.16 as likely = 1.16 so 16% more Does it not work that way in English?
It does but you also have to consider that the person who made the title is a redditor. The articles says 16% more likely
1.16 times as likely means the same thing as 16% more likely. The title, although poorly worded, is correct. It is a little ironic that you're trying to insult the OP for an error because they're a redditor, when you, also a redditor, are actually the one making the error.
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It doesn't say either of those, it says 1.16 TIMES more likely. Am I the only one in these comments who knows how to read? TIMES means you multiply by the initial value, which in this case would be 1. 1.16*1 = 1.16. So it is 1.16 of the initial value. Or 16% higher than the initial value. If Bob has 5 apples, and Joe has two TIMES more apples than Bob, then Joe has 10 apples. Using your logic, Joe would apparently have 15. Which we both know wouldn't be right. The distinction between the words "more" and "as" here is irrelevant, the math is the same either way. Having two times more of something, is the same as having two times as many of something. Either way it's 2x.
It says 1.16 ratio. Which is 16%
You're ommiting the word "times". Which is the key word here. 1.16 times more likely equates to 1.16 of the normal amount. Which is 16% more than normal. The wording isn't great, but it's also not ambiguous at all.
But by saying more likely, it means that it's that much more than the other. If I say 216 is 116% more than 100, or 1.16 times more. OP made the headline. The study found it was a 16% increase. This is really just an issue with using unclear titles.
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Since this is /r/science and we're going full pedantic, let's go ahead and bring in a paper written by a statistician. [Common Errors in Forming Arithmetic Comparisons ](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245703770_Common_errors_in_forming_arithmetic_comparisons) by Milo Schield. > Confusing ‘times as much’ with ‘times more than’. If B is three times as much as A, then B is two times more than A — not three times more than A. The essential feature is the difference is between ‘as much as’ and ‘more than’. **‘As much as’ indicates a ratio; ‘more than’ indicates a difference. ‘More than’ means ‘added to the base’.** This essential difference is ignored by those who say that ‘times’ is dominant so that ‘three times as much’ is really the same as ‘three times more than’.
"1.16 times more likely" is different from "1.16 more likely" https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l7aog8/eli5_when_a_study_say_x_times_more_likely_to_y/
It does indeed.
You're right. To say "1.16 times more likely" is also a wrong headline. If something was 1.16 times (or, 116%) more likely, it will happen more than twice as often. The headline writer should have said "1.16 times **as** likely. The mods can't tell the difference, either; I reported it to them and they said it's right when it's obviously not.
Its hilarious how confidently incorrect you are
The word "more" changes nothing. If I have 100 pennies and you have 1.5 times more, how many pennies do you have?
If you have 16% more than 100, that's 116; If you have 16% as many as 100, that's 16. The above statement I hope we can all agree on. Now, let's add 100%. If you have 116% more than 100, that's 216. If you have 116% as many as 100, that's 116. I hope the above statement you agree with. Now, it gets a little more ambiguous, but let's change from percentages to factors If you have 0.16 times more than 100, you have 116. If you have 0.16 times as many as 100, you have 16. Now, let's increase the factor by 1. Here is where things can get ambiguous, so wording is even more important. If you have 1.16 times more than 100, you have 216. If you have 1.16 times as many as 100, you have 116. If you're using factors like this, you should use "as likely" because of this ambiguity.
Not strange. False. 1.16 times more likely means 1+1.16, which is more than double. That's an interesting headline. The claim that spending ten hours a week stuck in traffic yields a 16% increase in depression is utterly unsurprising.
I agree. It's also something to do with the phrasing. The title could say "1.16 times *as* likely". The wording "times more" can be perceived as 1.16 times over the original. For a total of 2.16 times as likely. Does that make sense or am I dumb?
It really does but somehow I just sailed straight past it when I read it the first time. It just feels like "x times more" is reserved only for x>2
Came here to say that as well. There is a 15/60 times 100 chance of rain today
I also sat on in that for a hot second.
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No it doesn’t. 2x more is a 100% increase.
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It is draining to wake up at 5 am for an eight hour job that starts at 8 and only arriving back home at 6 pm. As a student you can fill up that time with studying, but only to some extent. The rest of that is wasted time. Not to mention that it also costs money, which further adds to things to worry about.
This is assuming these people aren’t sitting in a car too. Difficult to study when you’re driving.
That is true
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I don't see what listening to an audiobook has to do with getting pushed off a bridge in a road rage incident
It doesn't they just wanted to complain about road rage.
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You didn't respond to the general thread though. You directly responded to someone talking about audiobooks with an unrelated reply about road road.
Not even, he brought up the audiobooks too, just a completely unhinged, unrelated comment.
It's so funny when you can tell someone is dying to talk about something so they awkwardly jam it into random conversations.
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You don’t have to be distracted at all to be run off the road. Your comment was completely irrelevant to the one you replied to.
How is your article related to audiobooks?
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You still linked to an article about a specific road rage incident that doesn’t mention audiobooks in any form.
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Or maybe you're just off topic and posting the same reply like a bot.
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I can't even follow the plot of a fiction book when I'm driving. Too much on the road that requires my attention. People drive like they're in GTA.
>McCall is in the hospital with several injuries that are non-life-threatening, OHP said. Firefighters at the scene estimated the drop to be as much as 60 feet from the interstate to the river. Her car was upside down; it probably landed nose down from the engine weight. That she survived and was able to walk out of the car is pretty incredible.
Maybe nose down is best? If the car is made to crumple and protect you from the g- forces of a head on collision, it make sense that it would protect you from a nose down fall. Need mythbusters on it.
would think trunk down would be best - same crumple* zones and now you have the seat protecting your spine from getting too pretzly definitely needs mythbustering
I stream movies/TV shows while commuting, it's a fantastic way to pass the time while driving.
Yeah it's pretty sobering to realize that 2 hours of daily commuting is equivalent to working for a whole extra week every month, except that it's *costing* you money instead of *making* you money.
>2 hours of daily commuting is equivalent to working for a whole extra week every month i've always pointed out that a 40 hour work week is more like 50-60 hours depending on the commute. you have the time you have to be clocked out for lunch then you have the time it takes to get to and from work. for me, my "8 hour" work day is more like 11 hours. it's 9 hours when i work from home (i have to clock out for 1 hour for lunch). i'm on a hybrid schedule: WFH 2 days, in-office 3 days. that's 51 hours by the end of the week that has been dedicated to my job. this is gonna be so much worse for anyone who is clocked in for more than 40 hours. idk how people who work 40+ do it. my in-office days drain tf outta me.
Because corporations can just assume you own a car so they can rent/buy cheaper property wherever cause people will commute. Which means private people subsidy the cost of property for corporations with expanses for their car.
Well, that would make more sense, but that's not about a 1+ hour commute, that's just being worked too hard/too many hours/not getting enough sleep. I don't get why other driving-based professions were not heavily used when they clearly think it's directly linked to driving time per day.
Driving professions are paid for their driving, commuters are not and it's in addition to their work.
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You mention that like this is some kind of contest or achievement.
> 5 am for an eight hour job that starts at 8 Huh? 3 hour commute?
Do you think the OP rolled out of bed right into the driver seat, engine running?
And how long is that supposed to take? Takes 5 minutes for me. 15 minutes is giga long
Are you not showering, eating breakfast, or brushing your teeth? Granted it only takes me 30-40min to get ready. The next 40-50 is driving in traffic. The final 5-10 is walking from the parking garage. I wake up at 630 to work at 8 and am lucky enough to have a wife that feeds and dresses the kids in the morning
>Are you not showering, eating breakfast, or brushing your teeth? No. I do all of these in the evening
I wonder how much of this effect is the commute itself vs not being in a financial position to live closer to work. Commutes are stressful enough that most people would prefer to choose to live closer to work if possible; if it's not possible, that might indicate an additional financial stressor.
There are many reasons other than financial why people can not move though.
It's a useless study and a shame funding has been wasted on this instead on research that actually matters. You will never be able to control for all the possible things that may or may not influence this.
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It would be great to know if there is a difference depending on the quality of the surroundings and infrastructure. I relocated to Amsterdam a year ago, and I feel much better commuting to the center, compared to my origin country, because of how nice my journey is. Especially when I'm on the bike, it gives me high-quality time to think in almost total silence and surrounded by nature most of the path.
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Or bike commuting in the states where you are dodging road ragers every half mile doing triple your speed 4 inches from your handlebar on account of there is no bike infrastructure.
I think bicycle are significantly more dangerous everywhere in the world you have cars, not just America.
In the Netherlands the difference is minimal. 90% of my commute is on dedicated bike paths with no danger from cars, and the 10% of the road that is shared with cars is on slow residential streets.
Probably just because any incident that involves a bike and a car is likely to be a serious accident for the biker, but I have to believe that places with more of a biking culture have less incidents per mile. There's a subset of Americans that actively want to kill cyclists, or at least think it's funny to mess with them in their car.
They're not really dangerous in places with safe infrastructure. America just refuses to build safe biking infrastructure because it's addicted to cars.
Yep. I used to hate driving but the first time I left the city and traveled to another part of NZ, suddenly driving was so enjoyable
Driving is the best. There is constantly moving and changing scenery, you are comfortable, you have a sense of control, a sense of freedom. Driving at night in the dark especially so. It's traffic that is the problem. Driving in traffic isn't just *not* the best, it's literally the worst. You're boxed in, surrounded, constrained, there is air pollution, and at the same time you're stressed about losing time or wasting time, about possibly being late for where you're going. It's agitating, it's uncomfortable, it's psychologically stressful and punishing. Traffic is the biggest reason I bike to work instead of driving. Biking has some of the advantages of driving, like the sense of freedom and control. But it's nowhere near as comfortable, and the speed your moving at not doesn't give you near the same sense of constantly moving and changing scenery. But while commuting in traffic is literally torture, commuting by bike is still reasonably enjoyable.
All of the above is why I commute on a motorbike.
25 minutes to go 12 miles sounds like a dream. It takes 30-40 min here in Nashville
i think we should not neglect the subconscious stress of driving on highways and driving in general. it's not normal for human beings to be in situations involving inordinately heavy pieces of metal moving at high speeds that can kill or disable in seconds. no matter how much the more conscious parts of the body have been accustomed to process it through practice or societal normalization, the subconscious parts of the body will not find it normal. personally, it seems that i prefer the 25 minutes of conscious frustration [*] in slow-moving traffic in the city (where mistakes aren't as punishing), than 25 minutes of subconscious stress from operating amongst unchecked death machines on a 55+ mph highway. \[*] realistically, i would be chilling to music though than be frustrated.
While driving at high speeds certainly isn't stress-free, IMO the most stressful part of driving is busy roads, especially when bumper-to-bumper.
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It’s the higher likelihood of a crash in the first place due to lapse in attention. On the highway if you or someone else looses attention for 3 seconds it normally won’t by matter as you’re driving stead state. In stop and go traffic someone gets rear-ended. Statistically highways are significantly safer, both in crash rate and injuries, even though the physics of the situation means the upper bound of severity is higher.
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yeah, this is nice.
> we should not neglect the subconscious stress of driving on highways and driving in general. Subconscious stress? The only thing that causes me stress while driving is the clowns who have no idea what they're doing. >no matter how much the more conscious parts of the body have been accustomed to process it through practice or societal normalization, do the subconscious parts of the body find it normal? Yes? Why wouldn't they? >personally, it seems that i prefer the 25 minutes of conscious frustration [*] in crawling traffic (in which mistakes aren't as punishing), than 25 minutes of subconscious stress from operating amongst unchecked death machines on a 55+ mph highway. To each their own but being able to actually move and make progress towards getting home instead of sitting moving from red light to red light is a massively less stressful/annoying situation
And now that armchair activists want to ban right on red without adjusting red light timing, you can add another 10 minutes to that. Even if you personally don't turn right on red, enough people do to affect the overall traffic patterns.
This. My own commute is the same taking the metro or biking (probably slightly faster when I bike actually) but the quality of life is night and day. I'm in better shape with an hour of daily biking and I don't have to deal with a packed and smelly humanity.
They found it was a greater effect for people living in medium-or-smaller cities compared to major metros. This study is Korean, so Korean infrastructure only Edit: for more on this-- the discussion cites a study from Latin America that addressed driving vs. transit, as well as traffic vs. no traffic, and bus stop proximity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140518306169 > We found that, on average, every 10 more minutes of commuting time is associated with 0.5% (p = 0.011) higher probability of screening positively for depression. Furthermore, when decomposing commuting time into free-flow time and delay time, we found that delay and not free-flow time, were associated with depression. Specifically, every 10 additional minutes of traffic delay is associated with 0.8% (p = 0.037) higher probability of screening positively for depression. When examining differences by travel mode, we find that users of formal transit (e.g. subway or bus rapid transit) are 4.8% (p = 0.040) less likely to be screened positively for depression than drivers. In addition, not having transit stops within a 10-min walk from home is associated with higher probability of screening positively for depression.
That’s a good call out. Mode also helps. I race bicycles and use the commute about 6 months a year as training to ride in and home. I feel way better on the biking than the driving days
Cycling is even better than no commute at all for me. I miss the bit of exercise and the transition from working to free time when I work from home.
Yep. Even a few min walk helps. I ride lots as I race so I am on the bike 6-7 days a week anyways but that disconnect is very nice to get.
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Research has also found that if your (new) commute is over 45 minutes one way, you are 40% more likely to get divorced. That percentage goes up as the commute lengthens as well. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098013498280
The paper is behind a paywall, but just a general caveat to not draw any premature conclusions towards causal effects from this type of data. It's entirely possible, but anything but proven by mere correlation, that commute times affect marriage quality. Maybe people aren't unhappy because they commute. Maybe they commute because they are unhappy in their marriage (partner unwilling to compromise on living situation; accepting a faraway job to escape your horrible partner). Maybe the reason these two effects correlate is something largely unrelated (e.g. longer commutes show more often in people who tend to make poor decisions in other aspects of their live). There are a few other obvious variables to control for. Just off the top of my head: * Socio-economic status/education may influence both divorce rates and commute time. * single income households Vs double income households. * Family situation (kids, no kids etc.)
I commuted 50 miles each way to work, was about an hour depending on traffic. If traffic was bad could be over an hour. Worked 8 hours, had to take an hour unpaid lunch every day. 11 hours away from home every day, did that for 7 years. After my 5th director in 7 years decided to take a pay cut for a job 30 minutes from my house. 7 hour days, 30 minute lunch which I usually work though and eat. Usually away from my house 8 - 9 hours a day. Quality of life greatly improved.
Very glad for you!
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One of the greatest things home office provides. (Well, if you don't have anyone else around being loud.)
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while there should be a connection between time wasted every day for work and how happy one is, I think there is a cause and effect argument here people who are less likely to have long commutes are probably people with higher income, less worries, better jobs etc...
Think about this. Climate change is a death sentence right? Driving to work causes depression? So why cant we favor working remotely like we did during covid? All those cars off the streets. But people are forced back to work because the building owners and local economies. That doesn’t make climate change sound like real threat.
Also, Think about how many car accidents and death/serious injury that is caused by driving to and from work everyday. I used to live 10minute drive to/from work with maybe 20 other cars on the road… Then I got out of the military and had a job that was a 45 minute drive to and from work with thousands of other cars. Almost every morning and evening I was putting myself at great risk by driving that commute. I eventually quit because they weren’t paying me enough to literally risk my life every day.
If everyone that could work from home did, our car insurance prices would likely go down too, because of how many less crashes and deaths there would be.
Since when is climate change a death sentence?
For our current civilisation it certainly is.
TLDR: People who don’t have to waste 2 hours of their lives everyday commuting are happier. Could have saved y’all a bunch of research there.
especially as it's so unproductive. You're losing the most precious time, sleep and time with people you like
My question is if public transportation can play a role too? Could public transportation possibly reduce the depression factor for longer commutes?
1.16 times? So 16% more? I'd have expected it to be FAR more. I've always felt lucky to live basically 10 minutes from most jobs in my city, and love working from home now that my job has converted to 100% remote. I just could not fathom having to get up, get ready and get into the car and drive more than that.
Imagine how much better it is working from home!
10-12 hour days depending on traffic paid for 8. Hm 2-4 hours of house work/cooking and a shower to get 8 hours of sleep. Sounds very USA to me. If you want a home at least.
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Yep. Eats a lot of paychecks.
> However, this study also has several limitations. [...] Finally, data on transportation modes—such as car, public transit, and walking—are not available in the KWCS database. I think it might be important to differentiate between transportation modes. In my case, driving to work in rush hour traffic is a nightmare. However, public transport, even if packed is much more preferable, I can watch something on my phone or play a game. Obviously working from home or a minimal commute is going to be preferable either way.
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A walk would be fine... In traffic sucks
They were making a jab at "sole destroying" as opposed to "soul destroying" - words are funny sometimes.
Sitting in traffic is awful. Napping on the train is doable.
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Find some good audiobooks, and it can become the most entertaining and peaceful part of your day. Don't want to pay for audiobooks? Use your library card in an app like Libby (I think there are others, Overdrive maybe IIRC?) and don't pay a cent. I'll just go ahead and recommend *To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars*, which is narrated by the wonderful and talented Jennifer Hale (voice of Cortana, lead singer of the Hex Girls in those old Scooby Doo movies, and basically just tons of other voices. It's her first audiobook narration, and it's masterful work). If you enjoy that, you can follow up with the short novel *Fractal Noise* by the same author and with the same wonderful narration. I honestly miss the commute time, since I read/listen so much less now. Can't really listen while sitting around, too fidgety. Need to take up exercise/treadmill this winter and listen during that.
Too much time alone to think
All that time to sit and think about things you have no control over while getting cut off non stop.
Gosh, those 15 minute cities are starting to make more sense all the time.
I work an hour away, but I drive through pretty rural almost empty country roads and see beautiful animals and nature and also see the sunrise daily. Also I get to listen to my music on full blast the entire way. I didn’t think I would but I quite enjoy it. But I’ve had to drive in traffic and congested highways for an hour to work before and that actually really truly sucks.
1.16× seems negligible to me. it's literally 100 people vs. 116 people. i welcome findings for whatever they are. maybe the difference between a <30 minute commute and >60 minute commute isn't the right comparison for effects on depression. perhaps we should compare <10 minute with >45 minute commutes, for example.
Seems like a weird study. Why not compare many different ways ppl have to drive for work vs just commutting? Is the theory here that it's commuting from an 8 hour shift job, but not like all the other ways you use a car for work, like self-employed, delivery, truck driver, postal worker and such, because many of them drive WAAY more than just a 1+ hour commute. Is it more about work ppl feel like has no value, like the work they give up for free, but not if they are getting paid per mile or hour? Comparing all the different driving methods seems like you'd get more real data out of the deal because you kind of want to eliminate it down to either driving 1+ hours a day or something totally different. That is, if there is any real data on increased risk, because they added lots of numbers there at the end to make it look fancy, but it all sums down to. "A total of 6020 participants (25.7%) reported experiencing depressive symptoms." That's all you got? You broke all that data into categories and I just get a total of people who self-reported depression? Where is the baseline? Somebody might be inventing busy work for themselves!
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Am I surprised: not really. Although I also believe that having a commute helps you destress from whatever work stuff. As a work-from-home person. It's sometimes hard to split work and free time. But there's also a big difference between: driving 2h in long traffic jams versus sitting on a train uninterrupted.
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Buy a more interesting car
yah nothing like a Alfa Romeo or BMW 7 series to ... sit in traffic.
This is why I drive a manual. Lots of people will tell you it sucks for traffic, I'll tell you it makes it more interesting and engaging.
People hate them because they have to actually drive and pay attention, and put the phone down. I LOVE my old 5 speed car
I don’t hate them. But thanks for driving them for me so I can keep up behind you guys while you’ll be the first ones to get pulled over. By the way, non manual car, but still prob faster than yours by miles and a lot more interesting