Boredom is a choice. We can literally pre-occupy our minds non-stop to avoid self reflection. At its core, boredom is an escape from having to spend time with yourself. But how well can we know ourselves if we never allot anytime for introspection? What makes us come alive? How can we ever expect to actualize ourselves or transcend ourselves in a perpetual buffet of low hanging, cheap amusement that leaves us attentionally hungover?

Visit any store with a lineup and you will see nearly everyone in line, online on their smart phones as they wait in queue to be served. Once upon a time, there was an opportunity for chance to strike. A new friendship, an acquaintanceship that lead to a job, someone to learn about a fascinating idea or activity from or even romance (36% of Canadians use online dating according to Eharmony). We see them crossing the street without looking out to survey for dangers in the real world or hurtling on roads at over 100 kilometers an hour with eyes and attention looking inward at a tiny screen as opposed to the threats traveling just as fast around them.

Smart phones and social media scrolling are a low effort entertainment leaving the mind in a continuous state of distraction. App developers and tech companies are creating nuclear grade habit forming products and rely on B.F. Skinner’s behavioral psychology findings to keep our eyes and attention glued to technology rather than the attention starved people around us. For a more in-depth look into the psychology tech companies use to create habit forming products here (Nir Eyal’s Hooked model) and here (pschology of Variable Rewards). With banners, notifications and audible alarms, your concentration is impinged upon and productivity reduced. Employers pay for hours of productivity but often end up with far less due to technological distractions like social media, email and apps.

“Your life is purchased by where you spend your attention.”

James Clear

Most of us want more free time to do as we wish. But all the free time in the world is worthless if we squander it by not being able to direct our attention to that which is important and makes it valuable. Without taking notice of the present and being in a continued state of distraction, we wonder how our free time could have fleeted by.

Social media with its infinite scrolling and variable rewards isn’t the only recently introduced negative form of distraction. video games and abundant and free porn that caters to nearly every fetish also contributes to depleting our dopamine that could be used to aid in pursuit of high effort goals.

I’ve hammered at length about the effects of low hanging dopaminergic fruit but there are also other distractions that punctuate distracted solitude. Our incessant information seeking (aka Googling and searching). Like a deluge where the tap is never shut off, we drown in information without the time to properly process and assimilate it. With the amount of information that’s continually produced and now exponentially exacerbated by artificial intelligence, information has increased in quantity but suffers in quality as the filters and barriers to publishing it no longer exist.

Many of the greatest thinkers, scientists, artists, composers and rulers would spend time in solitude to flesh out or synthesize new ideas. Darwin, Einstein, Thoreau, Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Beethoven were just a few who made walking a regular routine.

Distraction And The Imagination

Children have impressive imaginations. Constrained by social norms and societal rules, adults typically lack the unbounded imagination that children have and are typically less creative.

Many children are no longer playing outside without electronic devices and video games as in generations past. This is likely having an impact on their imaginations, richness of life experience and learning outcomes from socializing and interacting with nature. It was common to see children playing baseball and soccer in parks and school fields while not on a rep team, riding bikes or playing hide-and-seek.

This is becoming less and less the case. Could it be media stories of minor abductions or harm?

Self Reflection

Allowing a bit of quietude each day or even each week helps to ensure we remain aligned with our goals and vision. As we accumulate life experiences and increase the number of relationships, we evolve as does our vision and what we want out of life. What used to bring us joy no longer does and we seek new vistas to inhale. We periodically need to take stock of where we are and where we want to go before circumstances of life make that choice for us.

Deep Work Vs Flow State

Cal Newport, who wrote the wildly popular business book Deep Work, popularized the idea of blocking off time, free of distraction to work on a cognitively demanding task. Newport suggests that people can accomplish far more in two hours of deep work than eight hours of shallow work (work that can be easily accomplished in a distracted state and usually offers significantly less value to a company).

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… the best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Popularized by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow state is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.^[1] Flow is the melting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding a balance between a skill and how challenging that task is. It requires a high level of concentration; however, it should be effortless. Flow is used as a coping skill for stress and anxiety when productively pursuing a form of leisure that matches one's skill set.

Wikipedia Flow

Flow is the mental state an artist or craftsman seeks when immersed in their work. Productivity gurus encourage scheduled work periods with specific break intervals usually preventing flow state from being achieved. In a perpetual state of distraction, few of us will experience this blissful state. Especially with our phones always at arms length beckoning for us to check the latest updates to access cheap dopamine.

“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”

Viktor Frankl

Benefits Of Boredom

Without the anxiety of infinite to-do items, compulsively focusing on the past or future or seeking pleasure we give our mind room to wonder. Our mind has the opportunity to run mental experiments and experience epiphanies. With many worries and troubles, our free time may lead to rumination. When we are mentally healthy, undistracted time may lead contemplation, the healthier cousin of rumination and we may experience new insights and solutions to problems.

Boredom allows us to put distance between the observer and the subject. We can view life from altitude or from distance allowing us to see things we couldn’t view close up. Problems can be seen from new directions or manipulated for unique solutions.

Regular beach sand magnified

Boredom is often used interchangeably with being undistracted but the two can be different. A person who is filled with awe and profound curiosity finds that boredom is impossible. A regularly overstimulated mind will regularly lead to less desire to engage with the world and possibly Anhedonia.

Occasionally let your mind wander. Realize the day doesn’t have to be filled with hustle and productivity. Boredom was a natural condition of life and should still be. Allow unscheduled time for contemplation and introspection.