First, it was a study showing conservatives tend to be “happier” than liberals. Next, it was a study pointing out that being unhappy actually has benefits. Now, The Boston Globe is running a piece singing “The Joys Of Boredom“.
What’s next? A study showing being sad improves your sex life?
Writer Carolyn Johnson seems to see technological advances cutting out those odd moments in one’s life where we’re not on the go. More powerful cell phones mean we have access to entertainment all the time, cutting out even “microboredom” moments. Johnson makes the case that boredom may serve as a prelude to creativity, and is thus essential for basic human development and cutting it out will have adverse effects. She finds support in the studies of psychology lecturer Richard Ralley from Edge Hill University in England. Ralley notes that boredom, in relation to other more interesting emotions like fear or anger, doesn’t get much study.
I’m just not sure I’m buying it.
I suppose if one considers evolution as a ruthlessly efficient machine, culling out traits that are pointless while reinforcing traits that are beneficial, boredom might have some point. However, that’s sort of like saying because pain is a bodily signal that something is wrong, one should cultivate it in order to have a better general well-being. Sometimes feelings and emotions only require a transitory presence to be effective.
Furthermore, there seems to be the assumption that boredom always translates into creativity and that strikes me as silly. I’m far more inclined to believe that creative individuals are going to find stimuli for their creativity regardless of the presence of cell phones and Facebook. It defies credulity that all those tools wandering around the aisles of Best Buy with their bluetooth ear scarab eating their face and calling their friends…who are about five aisles over in the same Best Buy just to say, “Man, I’m bored,” have somehow been prevented from becoming the next Faure, Picasso, Watson or Crick. Conversely, while I personally can’t stand the text speak, I’m increasingly a curmudgeon and I have to acknowledge that some of it is quite an impressively new way to look at language and communication. Perhaps the problem isn’t that creativity is being obliterated as boredom is driven out into the night, but that creativity is just occurring in areas that people like myself, Johnson and Ralley aren’t looking at or aren’t privy to.
I do understand Johnson’s point, though. Western civilization has embraced the concept of instant gratification pretty readily, particularly in the U.S. It’s hard not to see the constant barrage of stimuli that we willingly submit ourselves to daily as having some sort of negative effect. Perhaps not negative, rather, but just some sort of evolutionary pressure. Certainly in a business community that is starting to see even email as too slow, preferring correspondence by IM, one wonders what the effect will be. I can’t tell you how many times I dealt with upset workers coming to me, saying things like, “I wish I had just stopped and took a couple of breaths before I sent that email and started this whole mess” or how many times I looked at some workplace mess and thought, “You know, people really could use some buffers when dealing with email.”
Undeniably, communication is speeding up and we have to increase our processing speeds to match or be left behind. That additional speed may be perceived as an attack on boredom, or it may be just a new door to creativity. In the end, it’ll be years after the fact before we know for sure. However, one thing I do know is that, despite what the article says, I’ve never finished a game of Tetris in 2 minutes.
