Make Boredom Great Again

For most of my life, I’ve always seen boredom as something negative — something to avoid at all costs. The absence of a stimulating activity, whether for good or bad, was painful. That’s why the computer was my best friend in my teenage years. You’d always see me glued to the screen. But there was a limit to how much I could use it when I shared it with my other siblings. It all changed when I got my first laptop computer. I’d turn to it the second I got home from school. And if I didn’t use it, I’d naturally turn on the TV and play on the PlayStation.

No time to get bored, unless we weren’t allowed to use them. We would then complain to my mum because we needed something to stimulate us and avoid the pain of boredom. I experience that firsthand now with my three-year-old daughter when she is sometimes not allowed to watch TV, and she explicitly says, “I’m bored, dad”. Though she doesn’t know what the word means, she can definitely feel when it kicks in. Fortunately enough, she has a high amount of imagination that she can occupy herself with other things that don’t require a screen.

I’ve previously written on this subject with the same title a few years ago. But back then, my old piece was mostly a reactionary one to a tweet. I’ve since then wanted to revise it with a more nuanced approach, exploring how it came about and how we relate to it today.

The origin of boredom

The word boredom itself is a relatively modern one, constructed from bore, which was used to describe something or someone being dull, and dom meaning being in a state of something. Charles Dickens was among the earliest to have popularized the term in his book Bleak House in 1853.

But its sentiments have been around for a long time. Both ancient Greeks and early Christians used a word called acedia, meaning a state of apathy and not being concerned with oneself and the world. It was considered a sin in the Christian tradition. The French also had a word with a similar meaning called Ennui. Both of these states were mostly a concern for people in a higher position — the elites, the wealthy people, and monks.

The meaning of being bored took another turn when industrialization kicked in in the 19th and 20th centuries in the West. Beforehand, the working class, though they experienced tedious labor by working on the farm, found meaning in the work and didn’t experience the same concerns as those in the upper classes. So, going from meaningful work — working for yourself to others — repetitive tasks left a void inside people. This is why boredom became widespread, and the entertainment industry took advantage of it to fill in the gap.

What it means today

How we relate to boredom in the 21st century has changed because of digitalization. Unlike previous eras, we have access to a screen device pretty much every second of our day. That leaves us without room for downtime, to rest our minds and hearts. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a neuroscientist, and her co-authors researched the default mode network (DMN) in the brain. They argued that in a state of rest, the brain is not inactive, but is processing information that has been, as they said, “relatively suppressed by when attention is focused on the outside world.”

The research suggests that the DMN is most active in people solving creative problems. And as a creative person, I find that experience to be true, though I wasn’t thinking about it until I read the study. But getting into that state requires something most of us struggle with: tolerating boredom.

Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist, conducted an interesting study. The study was about a group of people asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes with just their thoughts. And what I especially found interesting was the fact that people, by their own choice, could physically shock themselves if they wanted to. Out of all the participants, 67% of men and 25% women opt-in for inflicting harm on themselves. Wilson was on the assumption, based on how the brain works on constructing stories and recollecting fond memories of the past, that the participants would make use of that time thinking. But instead, they’d rather do mundane tasks such as reading and then letting their mind wander off. At least it was focusing on something rather than doing nothing, which most of them found unpleasant.

And the instinct of wanting to do something, anything, is what John Eastwood, a psychology professor who runs the Boredom Lab, echoes when he said, “Boredom isn’t a desired state of being, but rather an indication that the mind is craving to be engaged.”

Why boredom might be good for you

There are those who champion the importance of boredom, mostly in the creative space. But I do also understand the need to alleviate boredom by distracting ourselves with entertainment or screentime, because I do it too sometimes (I’m consciously trying to develop a healthy relationship with those things).

I’m not sitting here advocating to create “boredom blocks” or “mind wandering sessions” in your calendar. Trust me, I’ve tried that myself. I did it once or twice, and never returned to it.

What I do advocate for, especially if you’re a creative person or someone in general who’s solving problems in your work, is that if you’re stuck on a problem, and have done the necessary research, finding inspiration, and generating ideas, but have a hard time connecting the dots, you should stop working on your project and do something mundane and unrelated to your work. I call it situational boredom. You’re allowing yourself to be bored in a specific context and let the brain (the default mode network) do its work.

Whether it’s taking a nap, going for a walk, exercising, playing with your kids, doing the dishes, taking a shower, etc. That’s when things start to click. Being bored in today’s environment means resting from the endless gratification that comes from our devices.