Reader\'s Digest Canada - 04.2020

(Brent) #1

Sounds like we need to get better at
being bored.
It’s more that we need to engage in
activities that might make us feel bored
without succumbing to it—like going
for a long walk by yourself without
your phone.


Easier said than done. Most people
take their phone to the bathroom!
Absolutely. To move away from that you
can practise basic exposure therapy:
head out on an errand without your
phone or read something that is longer
than a sound bite. Initially you will feel
the discomfort of boredom—that urge
to reach for your screen. But after a
while you won’t miss it as much. You
may even find you enjoy letting your
mind wander.


Which is different from boredom?
Getting lost in one’s own thoughts is
probably the exact opposite of boredom.


I read about a study where people
were left alone in a room to either sit
with their own thoughts or electro-
cute themselves. And a lot of them
opted for the latter.
I know of that experiment. I think it’s
important to note that for a lot of peo-
ple the choice to shock themselves
may have been based on curiosity, and
that no other activity was on offer. That
said, there is evidence that non-suicidal
self-injurious behaviour is correlated
with boredom. For instance, animals


in captivity pull their feathers out
when they’re under-stimulated.

It seems like a lot of kids today will
say they’re bored pretty much any
time they’re not being entertained.
There’s a lot of pressure on parents
these days to treat our kids like buckets
that need to be filled with compelling
experiences, structuring all their time
and never giving them the opportunity
to make a choice. The problem with
this approach is that kids aren’t learn-
ing to be agents creating their own
meaning in the world.

You’ve also said before that bored
kids can play an important role in
social progress.
Right. Young people being “bored” of
their parents’ culture is a way they reject
the status quo, which is how individu-
als and society move forward from one
generation to the next. If kids didn’t get
bored of their parents’ taste, we would
all still be listening to Beethoven.

John Eastwood, a York University pro-
fessor, is co-author of Out of My Skull:
The Psychology of Boredom.

TECHNOLOGY
MESSES WITH OUR
BRAIN, GIVING US
A CONSTANT HIGH.

rd.ca 13
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