IIn 2014, a group of researchers at Harvard and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone for 15 minutes. The only available transfer is a button that brings painful electric shocks. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times – even though he, like everyone else in the study, earlier showed that he found the shock so unpleasant that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The authors of the study concluded that even if the only thing that can be done is painful, “people prefer to think” – perhaps because, if left to their own equipment, our minds tend to linger in unnecessary directions.
Since the massive adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around the psychological equivalent of their pockets: a device that can instantly neutralize boredom, even if it’s not that good for us. We often reach for our phones in quiet or lonely moments, or distract us when anxious thoughts spread. This is not always A bad thing – too much introspection is unhealthy – but it is worth mentioning that avoiding unnecessary thinking is easier than ever, and most people distract themselves in a very similar, screen-based way.
Smartphones also add to the stress of using our time productively to optimize every minute of our lives. If there was ever a harassing commuter who might have been forced to stare out the window or read a book on a train to work, now they might try to catch up with emails to avoid feeling introverted and inefficient. Sitting down and doing nothing is considered a waste of time. But this ignores the fact that when we do nothing, we often have a hard time thinking. What happens to all these difficult or unshaped semi-minds that begin to form before we dig our pockets and pull out our phones again?
Most research-boring psychologists agree that although it can feel unpleasant, it is useful. Like hunger or loneliness, it reminds us of something different. Erin Westgate, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida, says we get bored if something doesn’t attract our attention, or when we think it makes no sense. This is not to say that something that interests us needs to be fascinating and meaningful: doing Sudoku may absorb, but it is relatively meaningless, and reading the story of Peppa Pig Sped Time on the 500th time is not fascinating, but it may still feel like something meaningful. Watching paint is neither irritating nor meaningless, which is why it is not a common pastime.
Anyway, when boredom attacks, you should ideally do tips for something more attractive or meaningful. If you don’t respond properly to your boredom, or if you can’t use something engaging or meaningful for any reason, you may find yourself bored for a long time. This is associated with a range of problems including depression, anxiety, poor life satisfaction, reduced academic achievement, substance abuse and excessive risk-taking.
There is evidence that chronic boredom is becoming more common and that this rise coincides with the rise of smartphones. In a paper published last year, researchers noted that in the first decade of smartphone advantages, the proportion of students describing themselves as bored has steadily increased. Why does digital media have this effect? Research shows that the main reason we pick up a cell phone or check society is to alleviate boredom, but this behavior actually exacerbates it. For example, one study found that people who are bored at work are more likely to use smartphones—and then feel more bored.
When you start to feel bored, checking your phone only locates the parts you need. Digital devices are really good at grabbing your attention – in fact, everything you interact with on the screen is designed to capture, keep, and monetize – but a lot of the things we do online don’t make sense. It’s easy to view your phone in just five minutes and re-lay it in two hours, with knowledge of the planning level of the latest Blake Lively controversy or ex’s holiday plans. Americans spend more than four hours a day on their smartphones and more than seven hours a day online. This adds up to 17 years of adult life to browse the Internet. I hope even the biggest technicians will agree that this is not the way they want to live their precious lives.
The efficacy of the phone puts us in superficial stimulation reduces our boredom to the information we may need to hear, such as “Why do I feel this?” or “What do I need?” If we pause to listen, then maybe we can make a choice, not manipulated by a software engineer. When a boring strike, we should resist the urge to relieve it immediately and ask ourselves: Are we looking for pure entertainment or something more purposeful, an opportunity to connect with friends or our community, or something different, is this new thing? People who choose to embrace bored for at least some time may experience fewer people paradoxically. This may even be the first step towards a more thrilling life overall: meaningful, creative, and free.
Further reading
Manoush Zomorodi boring and brilliant (Pan Macmillan, £14.99)
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (Penguin, £10.99)
Oliver Burkeman’s antidote (Vintage, £10.99)
