Is It Good to Be Bored?

We ask John Eastwood, psychologist

- Courtney Shea

Boredom gets a bad rap. But is there an upside?

Absolutely. Its function can be compared to that of pain, which provides feedback to prevent us from damaging our body. Boredom does the same work to protect us from stagnation. If we were content to be mentally unoccupied, we might never learn, explore, grow, discover.

These days, we’re constantly stimulated, arguably over-stimulated, by technology. Has it led to a decrease in boredom?

It may actually be making us more prone to boredom. Technology grabs our attention, but it does that by turning us into objects rather than agents. Instead of sitting down with our thoughts or complex ideas, we’re giving our minds over to a screen—and our capacity for willful focus and attention may atrophy through disuse.

There’s also an addiction metaphor that’s used: technology messes with our brain, giving us a constant high, and then we need even more stimulation to feel satisfied, to get that fix.