*The Minze Minute is a one-minute (or so) speed read summarizing the literature on a given mental health topic
Boredom is a topic that has come up quite a bit with my clients, so I am always looking for some good research. Many of my kid clients relate to The Most Boring Video Ever which cites a study in which participants left alone in a room absent of other stimulation preferred shocking themselves to boredom (Wilson et al., 2014). While I still appreciate the video for the discussion that ensues when I watch it with kids, it actually takes the study out of context. The study is actually a series of 11 experiments all examining the enjoyment of “just thinking,” in which they conclude that electric shock or another mundane task is preferable to being alone with one’s thoughts. Boredom isn’t really studied as a concept. Plus, there is some backlash about the conclusions drawn. Fox et al., 2014 went back to the original data (can you say dedication?) to throw a wrench in the conclusions drawn. For one, the people who shocked themselves during the study actually reported finding the experience of “just thinking” to be just fine, maybe even “somewhat pleasant.” The majority reported choosing to shock themselves simply out of curiosity. These pesky little details were overlooked by the Harvard publication that publicized it and seem to really cast doubt on the conclusions drawn. (There really was one outlier of a guy who shocked himself 190 times, though.)
Boredom is by definition aversive. When we are bored, we feel restless, discontent, and wearied with mental fatigue…and we want an escape! (Elpidorou, 2014). More specifically, boredom has been defined by Eastwood et al., 2012 as “the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity.” They go on to conceptualize it as a disruption in attention. We are unable to focus our attention and engage either with an internal or external information; that is, we cannot engage with our thoughts or feelings and we cannot engage with our environment. Plus, then we get hung up on the fact that we can’t engage. Oh, and we blame it all on the environment…even though in a bad mood we could be bored in the most exciting of environments. “Mom! There’s nothing to do; I’m bored!” (In your best whiny voice)
“There is nothing new under the sun!” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Boredom research goes back to the 1950s and philosophical discussions of boredom even further back in time. So we can’t blame it all on smartphones. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, boredom is a good thing. First there’s the default neural network and its connection to creativity (for more information, I’ll refer you to a good TEDx talk or a past issue of The MinzeMinute). On top of that, boredom is informative. If attended to, our boredom can give us insight as to our goals, interests, expectations, and even our wellbeing. Plus (and arguably most importantly), boredom spurs us on toward action, toward making changes that align more closely with our ultimate goals. It has even been argued that boredom allows for monitoring and regulating our behavior (Elpidorou, 2014).
Clinically, we need to distinguish the state of boredom (good) and boredom proneness (maybe/probably not good). Boredom proneness is trait-like. It is the tendency to experience boredom in a wide variety of settings and measured in research by the Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). Boredom proneness is linked with a litany of negative outcomes including (but not limited to) depression, anxiety, anger, aggression, low enjoyment of thinking (I’m thinking that the 190 shocks guy might be prone to boredom…maybe that’s just me), poor social engagement, less job satisfaction, mistakes in task completion, difficulty finding meaning and purpose, and addictive behaviors (for a list of citations on these, see the Elpidorou, 2014 article). Yikes!
Essentially, for those prone to boredom, the functional value of boredom is obscured by its indiscrimination and frequency. Whether or not these correlates are cause or consequence of boredom proneness is not clear. Maybe someday someone will do some research on that. Nonetheless, if boredom is conceptualized (as it is by Eastman and colleagues) as an attentional issue, boredom proneness may reflect some dysregulation in the dopaminergic system (think ADHD of which intolerance for boredom is a de facto symptom…this also may be why this comes up so often in my office). Clinically, the old standards – mindfulness, behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, values clarification, etc. – viewed in light of boredom reduction make conceptual sense. A quick search suggests there is a lot of self-help for boredom that mostly resembles behavioral activation, but little related to clinical interventions.
-Laura Minze, PhD