Some “health experts” are claiming that sitting doing nothing for a few hours is bad for your health, but it doesn’t seem that outrageous a practice to me. Some people simply call that “meditating”, or “Saturday”.
The trend is referred to as “rawdogging” a flight and it basically means foregoing any of the in-flight perks—no in-flight entertainment, no snacks or beverages from the carts rolling through the aisles, and, in the most extreme cases, no drinking water or napping.
Like many trends, it’s playing out on TikTok
That tells me enough to be disinterested right there.
Somehow travel is different. I don’t sit around that much, but I was injured last fall and had to. My feet ONLY swell up with extended travel. I don’t know if it’s the immobility, salty food or what. I travelled to BC last winter for skiing and had so much edema I put on 12 pounds of water weight. They weigh you now to get in the helicopter, and I was like “Dear god, I need to go on a diet!” Got home, swelling went down, weighed my normal weight (still need to diet, though).
And (I suspect) that’s what he wanted you to think this thread was going to be about, so that you could then be embarrassed when you found out it wasn’t a sexual reference. Neener neener on the internet.
Same. My first cross-country flight it took 2 days for my ankles to go down. Now I always wear compression socks. Now, if we’re going on a cruise, that only does so much, as I gain a bunch of water weight from the food. I was up 7-8 pounds this last time. Came off in a couple of days, fortunately. Ughhh…
While familiar with the term in a sexual context or re: using an unprotected browser (i.e., “rawdogging the internet” and thus experiencing all the ads, getting all the malware, and getting blocked by newspaper paywalls like someone who discovered the internet yesterday.) I first heard the term re: flights as “rawdogging reality” on a flight. Some people have terrifying thoughts they’d rather not be left with unfiltered.
It’s not “sitting and doing nothing”, it’s specifically remaining motionless on a long flight. For most people, that means sitting in economy class, where remaining in your set means you can’t move around much at all and you’re stuck breathing dry, rarified air (cabin pressure during cruise is like being on the ground at an elevation of 8000 feet). And yes, it comes with risks:
I’ll stay seated for a whole 3-hour flight to Colorado, though I might make it a point to move my legs around every 10-15 minutes, specifically contracting my calves, thighs, and buttocks to try to get stagnant blood moving. For a 13-hour flight to Tokyo, I deliberately drink water so that I have to get up and go to the bathroom every hour or so.
Being immobile for long times is obviously not healthy for you, but I don’t think that’s what “rawdogging air travel” is really about.
Personally, this is the way I usually fly. I absolutely can’t sleep in a normal airline seat. Unless I’m starving, I don’t like to take any meal or snack where I have to lower the tray, because then I’m trapped in the seat until the attendant returns to clear the tray. Books and other distractions are rendered useless by all the jostling and announcements. If there’s a video selection, it’s usually things I’ve already seen, and the video search screen is too terrible to find anything new.
So what I do generally is sort of sit there and zone out. My mind doesn’t wander far because of the noise and distractions. I’ll stand, stretch, and walk around occasionally to avoid cramps and pain, but otherwise I just sit there. My seatmates probably think I’m insane, but there’s really not much else I can do.
Anyway, that’s what the phrase evokes for me, just doing air travel the only way I can manage, sitting there like a dog in a crate staring at the back of my seat.
I notice this usage of ‘disinterested’ a lot on the SDMB. I guess I’m curious if ‘disinterested’ has changed meaning to many Dopers. If it has then–well, what can you do? But I feel I’m at a loss in determining which word I should use when I mean ‘uninterested.’ It’s a bit like the usage of ‘literally’ but not as far along the “new definition” path yet.
I suppose I could start using whatever term the Dope decides on but right now it’s not clear. Shall we collectively choose a definition for ‘disinterested’? Just wondering.
Oh… and this rawdogging seems a bit nutty to me if it means going without water for a long flight.
In general, I’d say that being bored and being able to be bored are both very good things that have some benefits.
I’m not sure that I’d recommend that concept to be attached to the phrase “rawdogging it”, though. And yeah, you can move around and drink water while still being able to step back and think about life.
I was taught that “disinterested”, rather than “uninterested” means being neutral about something. But then again, “Those definitions, they are a chaaaang-ing” (with apologies to Mr. Dylan).
I used to be tremendously ill every time I flew, resigned to losing at least a day of every vacation. I finally realized that purposely dehydrating myself in order to avoid using an airplane toilet was a really really stupid idea.