In Defense of Boredom
Growing up, if I announced that I was bored, that was my mother’s wake word to start suggesting that I take out the trash, vacuum the living room, etc. So, naturally, I learned to occupy myself. (love you, ma ❤️)
As my friend TJ put it, I am currently at the end of fun-employment, i.e. the ~2 week gap between the end of my last job and the start of my next. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve had unstructured time.
I was super excited for some time to myself and I am happy to say that, by the end, I achieved exactly what I needed: I got bored.
Is Boredom Bad?
My opinions here were shaped by this short piece from Kate Lindsey. In it, she discusses the ever-growing intensity of our media environment. Keeping up with Twitter and Instagram Stories and TikTok and all the other things that demand attention is overstimulating, and comes with substantial costs. People complain of worsening memory and just an inability to lock into a book anymore.
All of this leads into the opinion that I share: boredom is good.
It does not feel good. When I’m bored, I tend toward restlessness and avoidance. Sometimes that looks like rotting. Other times it looks like anxiety, dissatisfaction, or low-grade existential dread leading me to questions like “what am I doing with my life” or “how did I end up here.”
Those feelings are unpleasant, but I’ve come to think of them as useful.
Boredom is a Signal
When we touch a hot pan, we feel a sharp sting and recoil to avoid further burns. The pain itself is not the problem that needs to be addressed. Rather, the pain is just the signal that tells us to move our hand. An unpleasant signal, but a signal nonetheless!
Boredom works the same way. It’s not the boredom to be upset about, in the same way I’m not mad at my pain receptors for telling me the pan is hot or my thermoreceptors for telling me I'm cold. Boredom is a signal that something is misaligned. I'm honestly not quite sure if it's one source of misalignment, but if I put a word to it, boredom is the absence of meaning.
The discomfort of boredom is just it trying to do its job. The real issue is that we rarely let it finish doing that job.
The Easy Fix
I’m going to keep dragging this analogy along. If your hand is on a hot pan, you don’t leave it there and throw aloe on it or take an Advil. You change your behavior.
But when our brain is signaling that something needs to change, we often reach for the mental equivalent of Advil. An Instagram Reel keeps the anxiety at bay until you’re too tired to do anything else. Scrolling Twitter is enough of a distraction to dull a sense of dissatisfaction or lack of fulfillment. Insert your vice here.
Just to be clear, maybe your thing isn't phone use or Reels, but something else. A different avoidant behavior. My point here is not that phones are horrible, but that boredom is good. And that our current media environment is trying so incredibly hard to make sure that we never, ever experience it.
Changing Tides
This can sound a like I'm a luddite or judgy, so I want to be clear: I like my phone. I enjoy Reels. I’m not trying to opt out of modern life.
What I am noticing is a growing exhaustion with constant stimulation; both in myself and in the conversations happening around me. The volume feels like it's accelerating. The relief feels shorter-lived. There are apps dedicated to scrolling through AI-generated slop. Quite literally infinite, algorithmically generated content designed so you never have to be bored.
Despite this, I sense a growing sentiment that folks are exhausted. I compiled some of the things that have me feeling like this anti-boredom bubble may be on the verge of popping.
A Scientific Take
Here’s a story from NPR about the impact that a short smartphone hiatus can have on your mental health. In the associated study, 91% of participants reported feeling better after taking a two-week phone break.
This isn’t proof of anything definitive, but it does suggest that when distraction is reduced, internal signals (like boredom) get louder.
A Subjective Take
My roommate Caden (hi roomie) shared a story from his experience as a career day speaker. He talked about his career as a software engineer and was met with thoughtful questions and real engagement. It was noticeably different from how those events felt when we were in school.
The reason turned out to be simple: the students had voluntarily given up their phones for the week in exchange for extra credit.
As someone who lived through high school with smartphones, the difference was striking. When the easy escape disappeared, attention and curiosity came back.
This idea shows up nicely in this blog post from Danny Castro:
“My phone asks me to turn on notifications. It also asks me to share my location data, install updates, and rate my in-app experiences. Sometimes scrolling on it literally makes me car sick but it keeps asking me to scroll, ignorant of my displeasure.”
In The Markets
Here are some tools I’ve been hearing chatter about lately. I include these as I think the market traction can be an indicator about which direction the pendulum is swinging.
The Brick -- a physical device that you need to tap to unlock your problem apps.
Light Phone -- A dumbed down phone that only does a subset of what a traditional smartphone can do.
The Fabulous -- An app from one of my favorite behavioral economists, Dan Ariely. Haven’t used it, but it aims to help you stick to what you actually want to do.
Focus Friend -- Another app from Hank Green. It’s like a skinned Pomodoro timer that essentially disables your phone for a fixed period of time so you can lock in.
Phone Lamp -- Not commercially available (yet??), but a fun project from Simone Giertz. You need to put your phone down to activate a grow light, lest your plant will die.
Boredom doesn't need to be fixed! It is our brain's wonderful way of telling us that we are missing something. If we continue to treat it like pain and immediately reach for Advil and aloe, we may feel better, but our hands will continue to burn.