Boredom is bliss

Boredom felt during passive activities heightens the "daydreaming effect" on creativity - the more passive the boredom, the more creative a person could be afterwards.

Let’s discuss boredom. I know it’s boring — you would rather scroll through your Twitter or Instagram account (I would prefer binge-watching videos on YouTube or OTT platforms). 

Yet, we must admit that with an endless array of information and entertainment, boredom has become something of a rarity — perhaps, even, a luxury. And, it's bliss, at least sometimes. 

First, what creates boredom? 

According to the authors of 'The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention', a paper published in September 2012 in Perspectives on Psychological Science, boredom is the aversive state that occurs when we (a) are not able to successfully engage attention with internal (thoughts or feelings) or external (environmental stimuli) information required for participating in a satisfying activity; (b) are focused on the fact that we are not able to engage attention and participate in a satisfying activity; (c) attribute the cause of our aversive state to the environment. 

Basically, boredom is a state of feeling underwhelmed. Studies show that a person would probably rather choose to be shocked than be alone with his/her thoughts for as little as six minutes.

Still, boredom is essential for happiness in our lives. Research has found that it activates areas of our brain that link to negative emotions like fear and disgust, as well as, areas that govern our ability to plan and behave in a goal-driven way. 

According to a report published in Harvard Business Review a few years ago, researchers Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman, both at the University of Central Lancashire, explained the creativity-boosting power of boredom in two rounds of studies. In both rounds, participants were either assigned the boring task of copying numbers from a phone book or assigned to a control group, which skipped the phone book assignment. All participants were then asked to generate as many uses as they could for a pair of plastic cups. Mann and Cadman found that the participants who had intentionally led to boredom through the phone book task had generated significantly more uses for the pair of plastic cups.

"The findings suggested that boredom felt during passive activities heightens the 'daydreaming effect' on creativity — the more passive the boredom, the more likely the daydreaming and the more creative a person could be afterwards," it said. 

American writer and filmmaker Susan Sontag had once said: "The life of the creative man is led, directed and controlled by boredom."

According to American and European researchers, when people's minds wander, they're more likely to think about their future.  In a process known as "autobiographical planning", they most frequently plan and anticipate their goals while daydreaming.

Daydreaming actually involves more than just beating back boredom — in fact, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at Bar-Ilan University demonstrated not only daydreams offer a welcome "mental escape" from boring tasks, they also have a positive, simultaneous effect on task performance.

Actually, feeling bored is like an alarm bell in a person's brain, sending a warning that something isn't right. And in the search for a solution, we upgrade ourselves.

The sense of disillusionment that accompanies boredom also encourages a person to re-establish a sense of purpose and helps connect with someone by acting altruistically. 

Besides, there is a growing body of research which shows just how important boredom is for a child’s development. "When confronted with wails of ‘I’m bored!’ adults don’t need to rush in with an organised activity or a new toy or game. Encouraging the child to find his or her own solution will help them develop autonomy, creativity and coping skills," Teresa Belton of the University of East Anglia, and author of Happier People Healthier Planet, wrote in an online article.

So, next time when you have nothing to do, don't take out your smartphone and jump into social media, but allow your mind to wander. Boredom is precious.

And with this, I'm bored. It's time I checked my phone and dove into that glowing screen.  

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