For several years now, there has been a recurring debate in the general media linking the development of new technologies and the evolution of human experiences resulting from these technologies with a progressive disappearance of boredom. The more or less common impression in the debate, which, however, has many nuances, is that the use of the Internet and portable electronic devices takes up a large part of people's time in general: including the time they spend in would probably have been bored in the past when they happened to have nothing to do.
The disappearance of boredom is a topic often discussed by people who remember from their own experience a time when their attention was less contested by communications and portable devices than today. However, in a sense, their perspective may not be all that different from that of people who, over the centuries, have seen how objects like paperbacks, newspapers, magazines, Walkmans, and portable video games alter previous practices and habits by reducing the occasions on which could get boring. The difference is that the smartphone has many more functions and, realistically, is much more widespread and present in today's world than other portable objects ever were.
A popular idea is that reducing smartphone use can promote the experience of boredom, at least under certain circumstances. There are those who propose this precisely because they believe that this type of experience is useful but is less available today than in the past. A large number of the examples mentioned are about situations in which, even before smartphones, boredom could arise when waiting for something: a flight, an appointment, a doctor's visit or waiting for your turn at the counter. However, the current examples of boredom are mostly cases in which the use of the smartphone is discouraged or banned for reasons of politeness or for other reasons: for example during a meeting, but also at a party or at the table.
Over the past two decades, a number of books and research have inspired largely positive approaches to interpreting boredom, understood as a set of sensations and reflections that arise when no activity is taking place, for example when lying down and staring at the ceiling. This type of inactivity is credited with fostering creativity and imagination and increasing children's familiarity with certain feelings, such as frustration and sadness, while giving them the opportunity to reflect on what activities they find fulfilling and interesting.
However, there is research that defines boredom as a potentially harmful phenomenon and links it to an increased risk of depression, anxiety disorders, addictions and psychosocial problems. Even in young people, inactivity associated with boredom can increase the tendency to engage in sadistic behavior toward other classmates, according to a 2023 study of students ages 10 to 18.
A person waits at Christchurch Airport, New Zealand on March 16, 2020 (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
According to psychologist John D. Eastwood and neuroscientist James Danckert, authors of the 2020 book “Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom,” one reason for the ambivalence and ambiguity of boredom is that there is no single, precise definition of what boredom is, not even among psychologists. To describe it, Eastwood and Danckert compare it to the feeling of having the word on the tip of the tongue (tip-of-the-tongue syndrome): when bored, the feeling that something is missing, but not being able to say something .
In part, the dark sides of boredom, highlighted by studies linking it to various types of mental health problems, reflect a cultural tradition that is very deeply rooted in Western philosophical thought. In the 1st century AD, the Latin philosopher Lucius Anneus Seneca, in a letter to the poet Lucilius, described boredom (taedium vitae) as a state of mind similar to nausea, brought about by contemplating the inexorable cyclicality of life. In the Christian tradition and among medieval monks, acedia was a type of chronic boredom characterized by listlessness and restlessness that distracted from prayer.
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In the book Boredom: A Lively History, Canadian classical studies professor Peter Toohey suggests a distinction between boredom, understood as a fundamental and biological trait, that is, a state that humans have always experienced under certain circumstances, and boredom, understood as a by-product. to distinguish modernity. While the first type has to do with a lack of stimulation, which has also been observed and studied in non-human animals, the second type of boredom has to do with a feeling of emptiness and human alienation, which writers, philosophers and sociologists have experienced in different ways contributed to its definition over the last two centuries.
During his course at the University of Freiburg between 1929 and 1930, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger distinguished three different forms of boredom, the texts of which are published in the book Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. The first type is superficial boredom: “boredom” caused by certain situations, such as waiting for a train. Then there is a “boredom”, which is not due to specific circumstances and reflects a discomfort with oneself, and finally a “deep boredom”, understood as a “basic mood”, due to the indescribable lack of something that we can do not name it, but at the same time it seems familiar (a definition that is in some ways similar to that of Eastwood and Danckert).
A man in a park in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 13, 2020 (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Heidegger presents the second form of boredom – which, together with profound boredom, characterizes a more complex and elusive human condition than the boredom of waiting for a train – and gives an example that describes a very common experience of boredom in everyday life.
We're invited somewhere for the evening. We don't have to go there. But we were tense and busy all day and have some free time in the evening. So, let's go. There is the usual dinner with the usual conversations at the table, everything is not only very good but also tasteful. Then, as they say, we spend time together, maybe listen to music, talk, the atmosphere is lively and fun. It's already time to go. […] There is absolutely nothing that could be boring this evening, neither the entertainment nor the people nor the clubs. So we return home completely satisfied. You take another quick look at your work, interrupt it in the evening, make a rough calculation and a short forecast for the next day – and there you have it: This invitation really bored me this evening.
Boredom, understood as a potentially harmful phenomenon, seems to have more of a historical connection with “existential” boredom, a chronic condition that is independent of what we do or do not do. This meaning also contradicts, at least in part, the popular idea that constantly carrying a smartphone in your pocket limits the experience of boredom: it could actually mean or even encourage boredom if, for example, you equate scrolling with the fruitless and frustrating search for leisure activities can be described using Heidegger’s example.
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In other areas of the social sciences, boredom has historically been described mostly negatively, as a result of the dehumanization of the individual in the work practices of modern society. In a radio speech in 1969, the German philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno described boredom as a “function of life in conditions characterized by compulsory work and a strict division of labor.” From this perspective, leisure would be nothing more than a sign of a lack of freedom and boredom would be a state of “objective despair” of the masses “enmeshed in the same old thing.”
Contemporary research on boredom in psychology addresses some of the same questions that have preoccupied philosophers, sociologists, and writers for centuries, but focuses primarily on studying boredom at the individual level rather than at the existential, social, or political level. And there are two different approaches, as the New Yorker 2020 summarizes. The first understands boredom as a problem of “pointlessness”: that is, it arises from the inability to find the task we are doing meaningful and therefore interesting. Because basically we don't. It doesn't matter what we do.
A little boy next to his father uses his smartphone to follow a distance learning lesson during the pandemic in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, September 28, 2020 (Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)
Another approach sees boredom as an attention problem: If a task is too difficult or too easy, we lose concentration and the mind stops. According to Eastwood and Danckert, who refer to this approach, boredom arises “when we remain trapped in a stalemate of desire in which we would like to do something but do not want to do anything” and “our mental faculties, our abilities.” and our talents remain idle.” It can be a condition favored by a number of factors: an actually boring situation, a tendency to boredom, or the indication of an underlying psychological problem. Which factor predominates requires a thorough case-by-case assessment.
According to Eastwood and Danckert, who believe that the empirical evidence for the hypothesis that boredom promotes creativity is rather weak, boredom is a “cognitive state”: a state without value in itself, whether negative or positive. It's possible that there is an evolutionary connection to disgust, which would explain the impatience that bored people feel. Finally, many authors of the past, from Seneca to the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, have described and explained boredom in terms of nausea.
From this perspective, just as disgust allows us to avoid potentially harmful stimuli, boredom could be seen as an evolutionary response to harmful social situations or as a signal that a particular condition might develop into a more precisely defined psychological problem. But the way people respond to boredom has changed dramatically over the last century. People have become accustomed to passive entertainment, that is, to doing less to get more, Eastwood explained to the Smithsonian: The ability to receive intense stimuli by clicking a mouse or touching a screen has activated habituation mechanisms that lead to this People continue to seek incentives to maintain the same level of satisfaction.
According to scholars like Eastwood and Danckert, boredom is largely a matter of insufficient attention. This suggests that anything that captures and holds attention and only engages people at a superficial and fragmentary level tends to increase boredom. That's why these same scientists typically suggest limiting “passive” activities — like watching TV or scrolling — enabled by technology that is “unrivaled in its ability to capture and hold our attention,” Eastwood write. and Danckert.
The limitation of this approach, the New Yorker wrote, is that it tends to overestimate the capabilities of individuals: it says little about the structural difficulties people face when trying to “take more control of their time or to gain their free will in their lives”. .” Boredom is a partly individual, partly collective phenomenon and actually describes a state in which the individual has less and less power: “And you don't have to be Adorno to understand these difficulties.”