Trying to be Bored More Often

Altani

Altani

Member
New Member
I was reading this article yesterday, and in it, the author makes the argument that being bored is actually super important for your brain. Apparently chasing little hits of dopamine all day through scrolling on our phones is really bad for us, kind of akin to drugs, where you get addicted to chasing higher and higher highs. So, I’m making a conscious effort to (sigh) try to be bored more often. What do you guys think of the concept?
 
This is a topic I've been quite interested in as well! Here's a nice collection of thoughts on boredom and creativity if you want some more to think about: Boredom is a pit stop - Austin Kleon

I also think Louanne's got it right. Daydreaming is good for your mind. The human brain isn't built to handle the kind of constant consumption we feed it these days. Sometimes it just needs to drift.
 
Hey! Bit late to this but wanted to contribute.
There's some great support for the concept of being "bored," or at least, being alone with your thoughts as being incredibly helpful to your ability to make things.
If you're into maybe trying to be less involved with social media, a little more focused on work like writing, you might check out the book Digital Minimalism for some ideas on how to proceed. I have a handful of criticisms of that book but I think it's largely helpful, and maybe you'd find it helpful too. This particular topic, the author calls not being "bored" but being in "solitude." Here I'll grab some quotes.

Instead of meaning just being hidden away from other people, the author uses the definition of solitude: "... a subjective state in which your mind is free from input from other minds" (Part 2, Spend Time Alone). This means, for the duration of however long your solitude-time is, not having input like books, conversations, social media posts, and mayyybe music. You can be physically around people, just not engaging with them. So the old novelist-in-a-coffee-shop trope is still good for solitude!

Things like boredom or solitude are valuable because of the emphasis on "... the insight and emotional balance that comes from unhurried self-reflection" (also Part 2, Spend Time Alone). That has largely been my experience. Solitude and being involved with your own mind means you spend more time focusing on the depth of your thoughts and the connections between them rather than surface-level interactions, like social media. Of course, you should balance time in solitude against good, meaningful human interaction!

And just as a note, long before I read that book, I did make a genuine attempt to get away from scrolling on YouTube and Reddit and trying to be bored more often. It was really helpful for me. Eventually social media platforms became bad-boring and being alone with my thoughts became good-boring, and I felt way more invigorated to work on all my projects. Instead of reaching for my phone the moment I felt the stress of not knowing how to proceed, I sat there, engaged with the concern, and thought up possible paths forward. Mom was right, it's that damn phone.

I hope this is helpful in some way!
 
How interesting that this topic is being discussed here! I recently watched a YouTube video about this very topic. Since then, I have implemented time limits for certain apps on my phone (iPhones have a built in mechanism for this, which you can activate in Settings). The screen time report has shown that I have averaged roughly 7-8 hours less per day on my phone than before I had these restrictions in place. Also, I like driving home from work in silence, just letting my mind do whatever it wants, which is normally concentrating on driving home!:p Now, when I get home, I tend to put my phone down on the bedside cabinet which is a distraction out of sight - out of mind.

I guess i'm not bored but my brain isn't always stimulated and it can recharge in these moments of "mental boredom". So the next step would be to actually be bored for a while, deliberately have nothing to do... That kind of scares me to be honest.😅
 
I think this could be true sometimes.
I often feel that when im bored im not as distracted by tasks and ideas for my writings fill up my mind.
So i take turns being bored and being busy writing my thoughts from being bored.
 
Altani said:
What do you guys think of the concept?
Click to expand...

I agree that boredom is good for us. I think the ability to be able to pull out your phone at any moment and dissociate into it is unnatural and hurting society.

I don’t know if I would say I’m trying to be more “bored,” because daydreaming for me isn’t boring, and that is what always happens when I have time to sit down and just be in my head, but I have been trying to cut down on digital clutter, endless scrolling, constant consumption, and reliance on one device for everything. Just living more offline.

Also, I think I read somewhere a while ago that new experiences and a lack of repetition slows down your experience of time, which is why as we get older (and have experienced more, so simple things are no longer “new” to us), time seems to go faster than when we were younger. So if being bored helps to initiate new experiences and cut down on repetition in your life, you should in theory be able to slow your life down.
 
GlitterRain said:
I agree that boredom is good for us. I think the ability to be able to pull out your phone at any moment and dissociate into it is unnatural and hurting society.

I don’t know if I would say I’m trying to be more “bored,” because daydreaming for me isn’t boring, and that is what always happens when I have time to sit down and just be in my head, but I have been trying to cut down on digital clutter, endless scrolling, constant consumption, and reliance on one device for everything. Just living more offline.

Also, I think I read somewhere a while ago that new experiences and a lack of repetition slows down your experience of time, which is why as we get older (and have experienced more, so simple things are no longer “new” to us), time seems to go faster than when we were younger. So if being bored helps to initiate new experiences and cut down on repetition in your life, you should in theory be able to slow your life down.
Click to expand...

I see you‘re point and the difference between daydreaming and actually being bored. I don‘t like being bored or having nothing to do, but I find the only times I can‘t get around being bored is when I‘m waiting for something or someone.

The digital declutter is especially helpful, and I would recommend it to everyone who is seriously considering regaining independence from the electronic world we live in. I have deleted certain apps that I would automatically switch to if I had nothing to do, since then I have found myself looking for other ways to busy myself or, just to be bored.

I like the idea that it can actually slow down time. I have felt over the past few weeks, that I have more time now that I am less ok my phone. Since I have more time, you could argue that time has slowed down as I am able to use it more efficiently.
 
Boredom is (ironically?) pretty interesting, and my relationship with it has changed over time. It's pretty hard now to even get a grasp on. What do I even mean when I use the word?

If I think back to childhood, I can point out two distinct forms of boredom: A) being forced to pay attention to things that really don't interest me (looking at you, math classes) and B) nothing is happening and everything is dull.

A) is its own special kind of hell, but I kinda loved B) because then at least there was space for me to fill with something. I usually got that type at home. I grew up in the forest, weren't any kids my age for miles around; we didn't have internet back then, and even TV was a somewhat scarce resource. This was also before I really got into reading books. So I'd daydream a lot, as a way out of the whole "nothing happening" scene. I'm sure this did absolute wonders for forming my creativity, and directly led to me becoming an artist/writer. It certainly developed a rich (sometimes chaotic) inner life, and is probably why I to this day find solitude so soothing (when it doesn't dip over into loneliness). I think my long stretches of isolation in childhood bore both positive and negative fruits, but that's another topic. I only mean to say that boredom can be either fertile soil, or a desolate wasteland. For me it's always been a bit of both.

I've since realized that as a kid I had real trouble "sitting still". Not so much physically, but mentally. I loved learning and discovering new things, I craved stimulation, novelty, action, energy, even chaos and drama. I was a wild little thing. This led to me being bored a lot, type A and B both, sometimes the mysterious and intangible type C, and if pressed into one of those corners I'd drift off inside my mind. Probably why I didn't do super well in school (though I aced those subjects that actually mattered to me) but I'm more than happy to trade that for the bounties of the imagination.

I seemed to have steered myself onto a tangent. Better veer to another tangent to save face!

If I look for boredom now, in life as currently experienced, by me... I can't really find any. Even those moments when nothing exciting is happening outside, and I can't find anything worthwhile within, I'm content and unbothered. I've learned to be okay with silence, and it doesn't come across as boring anymore. I guess boredom is a state of mind where you want to be somewhere else than you are, you want something else to be happening. That must be why those of us so inclined dream ourselves away in such moments.

Boredom, then, is a disconnect from the present moment. It's a searching force, a compulsion to fill "empty" space. I think it's a developmental stage we all go through, learning to befriend stillness without filling it with every kind of junk distraction. I'm still trying to minimize doomscrolling and whatnot in my own life, I'm getting kinda good at it, but I'm noticing that I'm usually far more bored when engaging in mindless, borderline compulsive consumption of nonsense than I am just sitting quietly.

That was a lot of drivel; I must have been bored. Here's some more drivel now.

Boredom is just a label, and like all labels it's laden with meaning. "Boredom" has some seriously negative connotations. I've noticed that the society in which we seem to live has an abundance of go-go-go attitude, a sink or swim mentality. If you're bored, you're doing it wrong. Go fill that empty time with something! Doesn't matter what, just fill it. Stay busy, be distracted, and you'll feel okay. Promise.

Yeah, I think boredom is good for you. Silence and spaciousness is, anyway. If you stare long enough into the abyss, chances are you'll find gold or a unicorn or something.
 
Night Herald said:
Boredom is (ironically?) pretty interesting, and my relationship with it has changed over time. It's pretty hard now to even get a grasp on. What do I even mean when I use the word?

If I think back to childhood, I can point out two distinct forms of boredom: A) being forced to pay attention to things that really don't interest me (looking at you, math classes) and B) nothing is happening and everything is dull.

A) is its own special kind of hell, but I kinda loved B) because then at least there was space for me to fill with something. I usually got that type at home. I grew up in the forest, weren't any kids my age for miles around; we didn't have internet back then, and even TV was a somewhat scarce resource. This was also before I really got into reading books. So I'd daydream a lot, as a way out of the whole "nothing happening" scene. I'm sure this did absolute wonders for forming my creativity, and directly led to me becoming an artist/writer. It certainly developed a rich (sometimes chaotic) inner life, and is probably why I to this day find solitude so soothing (when it doesn't dip over into loneliness). I think my long stretches of isolation in childhood bore both positive and negative fruits, but that's another topic. I only mean to say that boredom can be either fertile soil, or a desolate wasteland. For me it's always been a bit of both.

I've since realized that as a kid I had real trouble "sitting still". Not so much physically, but mentally. I loved learning and discovering new things, I craved stimulation, novelty, action, energy, even chaos and drama. I was a wild little thing. This led to me being bored a lot, type A and B both, sometimes the mysterious and intangible type C, and if pressed into one of those corners I'd drift off inside my mind. Probably why I didn't do super well in school (though I aced those subjects that actually mattered to me) but I'm more than happy to trade that for the bounties of the imagination.

I seemed to have steered myself onto a tangent. Better veer to another tangent to save face!

If I look for boredom now, in life as currently experienced, by me... I can't really find any. Even those moments when nothing exciting is happening outside, and I can't find anything worthwhile within, I'm content and unbothered. I've learned to be okay with silence, and it doesn't come across as boring anymore. I guess boredom is a state of mind where you want to be somewhere else than you are, you want something else to be happening. That must be why those of us so inclined dream ourselves away in such moments.

Boredom, then, is a disconnect from the present moment. It's a searching force, a compulsion to fill "empty" space. I think it's a developmental stage we all go through, learning to befriend stillness without filling it with every kind of junk distraction. I'm still trying to minimize doomscrolling and whatnot in my own life, I'm getting kinda good at it, but I'm noticing that I'm usually far more bored when engaging in mindless, borderline compulsive consumption of nonsense than I am just sitting quietly.

That was a lot of drivel; I must have been bored. Here's some more drivel now.

Boredom is just a label, and like all labels it's laden with meaning. "Boredom" has some seriously negative connotations. I've noticed that the society in which we seem to live has an abundance of go-go-go attitude, a sink or swim mentality. If you're bored, you're doing it wrong. Go fill that empty time with something! Doesn't matter what, just fill it. Stay busy, be distracted, and you'll feel okay. Promise.

Yeah, I think boredom is good for you. Silence and spaciousness is, anyway. If you stare long enough into the abyss, chances are you'll find gold or a unicorn or something.
Click to expand...

You bring up some very interesting points. For starters, forced boredom, the type we experience when having to sit through things we don't want to, like a certain lesson at school or a wedding you've been dragged to, is extremely contra-productive. Time seems to slow down when we experience this, because the brain is under-stimulated and is constantly searching for a distraction.

The second type, the boredom when nothing is going on, is just like you said: It is either fertile soil or a desolate wasteland. As children it is most certainly fertile soil, and we were able to dream up all sorts of games, plays and stories whilst having "nothing to do". This stimulation is healthy as it utilises all of our mental capacity to create worlds, storylines, rules and mechanics for games etc... Playing video games, however fun they may be, doesn't stimulate the brain as much as if we were to go outside and play in the forest or something like that. The games, the videos, the doom scrolling, all of it doesn't activate the brain to think and create - we just sit there and watch, consume and enjoy the immediate gratification of ready-made entertainment. It is much like fast food: It is already finished, you just need to eat it. Afterwards, you throw the wrappers away and that was that. But did you learn anything? Did you get to experience the build up of your cooking? Where you able to add seasoning so that it was "just right"? Did you then sit down and enjoy your meal? Did you then reflect on it whilst you were doing the washing up? No, you sat in your car, got your hands greasy and now you're still hungry and looking for a snack.

Technology has been able to unite mankind like never before, yet at the same time it has plunged us into a loneliness and mindless consumption of mediocre entertainment readily available whenever we want it.

So back to the topic of boredom: It gives us time to reflect on what we have achieved and experienced, it allows us to evaluate and expand on ideas, both those realised and those yet to be. So boredom is very healthy as we have established.

I think we've ranted enough about boredom now, don't you? Dare I say this thread may be a tad... boring?
 
Phoenix Knight said:
Playing video games, however fun they may be, doesn't stimulate the brain as much as if we were to go outside and play in the forest or something like that. The games, the videos, the doom scrolling, all of it doesn't activate the brain to think and create - we just sit there and watch, consume and enjoy the immediate gratification of ready-made entertainment.
Click to expand...

Agree with everything else you say, but I have to speak up in defense of video games. It's such a broad category. A lot of them are just mindless fun, yeah, or sometimes mindless without any fun, or at best interactive stories just a notch above movies (and I love movies, but they're still largely passive); but a good strategy or tactics game, or a deep RPG, allows for plenty of mental stimulation and creative indulgence. And some multiplayer games teach/require teamwork and communication skill, and/or are fantastic venues for collaborative creativity and bonding. Not a whole huge leap from playing in the forest.

Not to highjack the thread or anything, but video games had a big role in developing my early creativity. Many of the games I played back then didn't have a whole lot of story built in, so I'd just make up my own narratives about them, sorta daydreaming while gaming (or while waiting to get back to my games).
 
Hi @Night Herald and thanks for your comment!

You are right about strategy video games. I shouldn't have been so hypocritical as I have spent many an hour on Transport Fever, Manor Lords and League of Legends, just no name a few. You certainly come away from those with your mind full of ideas on how to expand this, perfect that and that's what makes it so fun - in strategy games you are compelled to think!

I confess that I have also drawn up plans on how to expand my transport network in Transport Fever. They chose the name wisely, because once you play that game, it is almost impossible to stop. I have a folder somewhere containing distribution plans, new track-plans for railway goods yards, the planned route of new motorways, as well as "short stories" about the history of the infrastructure.
 
@Phoenix Knight No hypocrisy detected. Video games are a gray area, they're one of the most seductive time sinks I can think of, but there's also a proper way to engage with them—the "good" kind of video game, anyway. You mention League, and that one can swing either way. I used to play Ranked, now it's almost exclusively mindless fun and hooliganism with the crew. It's certainly not boring when the right handful of people get together; but often enough I have used it as just a brainless distraction. Manor Lords seems super neat and just like my thing, I played it a bit, but I'm waiting for updates before I go back.

Getting back to the topic of boredom... I could swear I had something useful to say about it just now, but it must've slipped my mind.

I made reference to a Type C boredom above. Let me go ahead and call that "the unscratchable itch". It's when you have plenty of time and no end of activities you could do, but nothing seems to satisfy. You know there is a specific thing you want, but sadly it doesn't exist. For me it often came in the form of specific games I'd want to play, and since they didn't exist I'd build them in my mind, figuring out in minute detail how they would look and how they would work. I even got to the point where I'd try to make some of them, but I'm not much of a programmer. Some became the basis for written stories ideas.

Without someone being bored out of their skull at some point, we wouldn't have video games at all. No games, period. We'd still be living in trees and caves, I'll warrant. So we owe a debt of gratitude to boredom, and should welcome it when it shows. It's not something to fight off. Poor guy has such a bad rap, but he's only trying to help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top