Image: AARON GOODMAN
In Brief
Dissecting Dullness
- Most people blame boredom on the circumstances, but psychologists say this emotion is highly subjective and rooted in aspects of consciousness—and that levels of boredom vary among people. Some individuals are less—and others considerably more—likely to be bored than others.
- Boredom is not a unified concept but may comprise several varieties, including the transient type that occurs while waiting in line and so-called existential boredom that accompanies a profound dissatisfaction with life.
- Boredom is linked to both emotional factors and personality traits. Problems with attention also play a role, and thus techniques that improve a person’s ability to focus may diminish boredom.
In a quiet, darkened lecture room, you begin a frustrating fight against fatigue. The overhead projector hums, and you cannot concentrate on the slides. You stop absorbing information and doodle mindlessly. The professor lost you eons ago. You are bored.
Virtually everyone gets bored once in a while. Most of us chalk it up to a dull environment. “The most common way to define boredom in Western culture is ‘having nothing to do,’ ” says psychologist Stephen Vodanovich of the University of West Florida. And indeed, early research into the effects of boredom focused on people forced to perform monotonous tasks, such as working a factory assembly line.
This article was originally published with the title Bored?.
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40 Comments
Add Commentcan this relate to a boresom environment a/o lack of like minds for conversation or maybe lazyiness
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI rarely get bored. I find ways to play games anywhere I am, even in the long grocery line. I see something interesting, and I make a comment to someone, even a stranger. Usually I get a positive response. Or I just muse silently to myself when I notice interesting things, I love to wonder why things are the way they are and how everything is related. It is fun for me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last paragraph of this artacle is incredable, very condensed. I agree it is a personal issue. I also think that overcoming boredome as a child through consciousness and focus (i.e. transending) as in nature as I do that there arfe many personalities in each of us that are accessable if we learn how to resaurce them. I have this communication and it is access to spirit, nature and what I perceive of reality. This is the height of my life and I could be a resaurce for others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisa fine aritcle. but one aspect not covered regarding existential boredom was the feeling of meaninglessness at the thought of the consequence of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisresaurce?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince depression and boredom seem to be related, can some of the third and beyond neurotransmitter-altering medications help with boredom?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCaffeine seems to help; why not Ritalin?
Csikszentmihalyi
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally?
Thank you Anna! Excellent article. I have chronic boredom. I think it's solved now that I have read your article. It seems I am "mood monitoring". It makes perfect sense. By always focusing on my moods, I am continually disconnecting with reality and cannot focus. This causes my chronic boredom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read the article like an instruction manual to my mind. By the way: it connects well with your article on "how to raise smart kids", which I found a strickingly precise account of my childhood. To make a long story short, I got a 142 on the boredom scale, which, if I understand well, pretty much qualifies me as prone to chronical boredom. I have never done any homework at all and coasted through school and university alike. I have been working now for 5 years with 3 employers which I always end up resigning from because I'm bored. I handed in my resignation to my present employer a couple of weeks ago. I can only focus on a task when I'm hours before the deadline, just like I used to actually prepare my homework during school breaks. Is this the "punishment for being intelligent" like insightyouneed says or can something be done about it. I must admit that although I was amazed by the diagnosis, there is still no solution in sight. I will try to get a really stressful job, I guess...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see boredom as the absent of:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChallenges
Obsticales
Motivation
Interest
Hunger
Friendship
Inner soul serenity
Peace
Prayers
Patienancy
Boredom is dependency, self center, intelligent and excess energy.
This is an excellent article and I have a better understanding on what is going on with myself and now I need to figure out what I need to do to make it better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery nice article! I think boredom is largely about combatting restlessness, learning to slow down and stay with an activity, as demonstrated by the stated research on attention.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have written more about this at
I'm bored to death reading this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> And according to your story the writer is a work,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> excercise, or food addicted, bliss-ful dumbass and
> men are smarter than women?
Insightyouneed:
[i][b]Just where in the article was it claimed that men are smarter than women?[/b][/i]
I have read through it twice and have found no such claim.
--- GSC
> ...boredom causation thing was horseshit. Boredom is
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> just another one of the problems that comes with
> intelligence.
[u][i][b]TO: insightyouneed and Sasha123 (and others who are bored)[/b][/i][/u]
Really?
[i][b]Then people like Einstein, Godel, Russell, Bach, Beethoven, Newton, Gauss and others of such capacity (taking up just a random list of people whose names come readily to mind who were surely supremely intelligent) were also utterly bored?[/b][/i]
[b]NOT TRUE AT ALL!!![/b]
Rather the opposite: their work and achievements during their lives seem to indicate that they were exactly the opposite of bored while they lived.
[b]Are you bored with your life? [/b]
Do you want to find a way out of this boredom??
--
Edited by gs_chandy at 05/15/2008 5:15 AM
I have no idea what this is about i started reading and got bored look funny signs http://www.petergreenberg.com/2007/09/10/signs-in-china-a-guide-to-understanding-common-engrish-expressions/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDITTO, DITTO, DITTO.. I was bored in school because they couldn't challenge my thinking brain. I flew through the lessons and sat there waiting for something that I would find interesting or have a bit of trouble with... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... I basically got lower grades in school simply because I was bored with the crappy curriculum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy nephew is brilliant. He scored in the 98 percentile of the nation wide test they give to high school students -- of course i can't remember what the dang test is called. Anyway, he flunked most of his classes - because he was bored for crying out loud.
Huh? Insightyouneed it's true. A lack of mindfulness, (awareness of even mundane tasks), often results in boredom. One must find an appreciation of subtlety. I don't think it has much to do with intelligence. If anything, those that are less intelligent will be more bored. Also, from working at an elementary school, I can tell you that the kids that often complain of being "bored" are the most likely to get into trouble and find harmful sources of stimulation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo bored :( CBA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny1 wanna buy some bearded dragons?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI get bored a lot,, my job doesnt really stimulate me unless im taking part.. sometimes i just cant be bothered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisu need a stimulating job... like something your good at.. or take up a hobby like a sport or even getting a pet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is very intresting article but I think it is depends on person's life situation. I am bored right now because I am a reserve flight attendant and I just moved to Alaska with two suit cases yesterday. Without car and I can't go anywhere. I am a very active person and I've been stuck in home for 12hrs waiting phone call from the scheduling.. I think that is why I am bored at the moment....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismaybe you think boredom is just a consequence of intelligance because you get bored a lot. You are also probably depressed you "cave-dwelling alcoholic", and you don;t want to attribute it to your constant state of depression. so please stop trying to make yourself feel better by bashing on a news article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found this article very interesting. Years ago a psychiatric nurse commented that some of the people we looked after were bored, rather than depressed. I didn't take much notice at the time-but now I think she had a valid point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf indeed boredom is a side-effect of intelligence, there is simply another challenge highlighted for the 'bored'. Use your intelligence to learn how to combat this. Learn to focus. Get a job that offers variety and stimulation. Stimulate your mind by making plans, write a (short) book, keep busy. Like wwildflower suggested; use your imagination and don't expect to be spoon-fed stimulation. I wonder how much boredom is a problem in societies where non-stop hard work is a necessity for survival. The boredom inherent in performing a repetitive task, for instance working on an assembly line is one thing, but I can't help but feel that certain strains of boredom are a modern luxury. Gaston, perhaps you should go to Africa and do relief work in a famine or war zone? That may present boundless stimulation and also restore a sense of purpose to your working life?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi feel enlightened by reading this article. i feel that i have an explaination for my distress at not being able to work out what to do in any of my spare time that i will enjoy stop me thinking about how purposeless i feel at the moment!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit appears i am a case of existential boredom.. when you do something so wonderful in your life and then give it up, nothing else seems to ever be worth the effort...
however! watching doctor who always takes my mind off things! :)
It is a really good article. The information is helpful and thorough. My boyfriend have always wondered how can I feel bored with something. It is true that some people cannot get bored with the things they are doing, but I think that one reason for this is because they have the ability to concentrate and pay close attention no matter what they have to do. They think about different tasks for interesting and that they can acquire new knowledge. For me, boredom is complicated because it depends on your personal psychological state,present goals and many other factors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks a lot.
yeah, the last paragraph was spot on, key word being pathology , parenting, fucked up world, human nature what? are our drives and desires driven by false positives............ THINK ABOUT IT AND LET ME KNOW
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi just read this cuz i am bored and let me tell u it isn't helping but plz keep writting articles it could help someone who is INTERESTED in bordem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJoshRom,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you.
You are right... smarter people think more about everything.
People who are always bored...always find themselves in some sort of trouble.
It's one of the personality disorder symptoms.
Find out why your bored.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMake changes until you find something that works for you...
Everyone gets bored once and awhile. (Not all the time.)
I like the fact
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to copy and paste this to my boredom site: http://what-to-do-when-bored.com/
would it be ok to do so if I linked back to SciAm.com?
If not, could I paraphrase and link back?
I dont know much about copyright laws. any ideas?
Please oh please spell check your comments... my brain hurts when reading horribly spelled words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhats the point of this article? I don't get it!!!!!!! You guys are lame if all you have the time for is to read this article it shows just how bored you really are:)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dont get the point of this article. If you actually had time to read this then you must have been bored. Im in school an i only read the comments an that was enough to bore me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUmm i was kinda hopeing this was a fun site that would get ride of my boredom but yah it wasnt kind odf a let down... All the other sites
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis article is boring
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, IM A MAN OF GOD, AND ON A MISSION TO SPEAK THE TRUTH. IM AFTER THE ENEMY THAT TOOK CONTROL OF PEOPLES MIND I GIVE THIS WARNING TO WHOMEVER HARBORS THE ENEMY, DON'T GO TO SLEEP. IM COMING THROUGH THE NIGHT LIKE A THIEF, TO STEAL THE ENEMY FROM YOU. 2 CHRONICLES 7:14 AND LUKE 1:17, THIS IS THE SEASON TO PLANT THE SEED OF FAITH AND HAVE A POSITIVE MIND. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoring
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this