Two hours of reading, snoozing, thinking, hobbies, what's wrong with that? I use...

bcyn · on Jan 17, 2020

This is classic Stockholm syndrome with commutes that I see all too often.

What's wrong with the commute? The fact that, if you didn't have the commute, you could do all those same things and also anything else you can think of. The opportunity cost is enormous.

chrisseaton · on Jan 17, 2020

> if you didn't have the commute, you could do all those same things and also anything else you can think of

I don't think that's true.

In my case, I'd pay the opportunity cost of not being able to both do the PhD with the advisor I wanted and also have my daughter live where I wanted.

If I didn't take the commute, I could do my hobbies, but not simultaneously both do the PhD I wanted and have my daughter live where I wanted.

Only the commute lets me satisfy everything I want.

See?

denkmoon · on Jan 17, 2020

Always an edge case.

You can't have your PhD advisor at home, but consider how many people commute to jobs that could be done just as effectively from home/remotely. How many man-hours are lost to that.

Also, it seems like you're using public transport. You're lucky that that is a) a viable option and b) pleasant enough that you don't want to murder people after a few weeks of doing it. The majority of commuters around the world are using personal transport, which has a huge carbon cost and does not allow for doing other things while commuting.

Finally, there are plenty of studies demonstrating the link between longer commute and lower well-being and mental health. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-019-09983-9

Personally, I wouldn't mind a 40 minute train trip and a 5 minute walk either side, but a 40 minute drive is awful. I've gone from a 40 minute drive to a 10 minute drive, and I feel "free-er" because of it.

Keverw · on Jan 17, 2020

Must be a place with good public transit? I know someone that drives an hour and a half one way just to work in a call center and drive back. So around 3 hours wasted. I guess only music, or maybe a audio book or podcast then in that case but I've seen people text and drive, read books and do makeup before though too even if you aren't supposed to. So many parts of the US lacks public transport, so if you don't have a car you are limited so much. However in the bigger cities there's more options.