How to be bored the right way

Embracing the bright side of boredom in a world of distraction

Dear Rethinkers,

I’m alone in my hotel room in Orlando, Florida. It’s a slightly strange place with bright tropical wallpaper accented by tigers. My phone says it’s 3:28 am and my laptop says 8:27 am. I’ve never been great with jet lag (or being mentally and physically in two time zones at once.) So what do I start doing? Swiping and scrolling my lack of sleep and the early hours away. It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break. But I don’t just scroll when I’m away and alone.

You know those moments when you mindlessly fill in the pause of a short wait with a quick hit of content from your phone? I’ve become particularly addicted to watching videos of people crossing the finish line of marathons and Labrador puppies. Whilst momentarily uplifting, it contributes to this intense feeling of perpetually moving; hands and mind constantly in motion.

What I really want is to regain boredom’s languid time; a stillness that leads to daydreaming.

“Killing time” – it’s a horrible expression when you think about it. Yet, so many of us are modern day masters at doing something meaningless to keep ourselves stimulated and occupied while waiting for something else to happen. And that something else might be as simple as waiting for a meeting to start, a bus to show up, or to check out in a grocery line.

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The research: a declining tolerance for boredom

As a child, I distinctly remember sitting in the back of the car on long journeys and staring out of the window. “Are we there yet?” I’d frequently ask. “Soon!” was the standard response from the front. Sometimes I’d play eye spy or car snooker with my brother, waiting to spot a yellow or pink one (extra points), but mostly it was time for my mind to aimlessly wander. Childhood used to have moments of being very boring, but in a healthy way.

A new paper in the Journal of Communication Psychology shows that the amount of time people spend being bored (what’s known as the Boredom Proneness Scale) has risen significantly over the past 15 years. Adolescents and college students in particular are feeling bored more frequently since 2009, the study said. The cause: endless stimulation from digital media.

So are we really more bored, or is our tolerance for boredom declining?

Read on to learn the true function of boredom and how to cultivate the right kind of boredom with small, actionable changes in your daily life.