The Psychology of Boredom

Boredom is a psychological condition that reflects a real-life situation in which we are not engaged by the activity we are performing or by the environment that surrounds us. When we feel bored, the time usually passes slowly and we have a hard time staying focused.

According to the scientific literature, boredom is not a rare phenomenon. For instance, one research showed that up to 90 percent of students can feel bored once a day. Another study reported that 63 percent of adults can experience boredom at least once over a period of 10 days.

Boredom lives within us. Nonetheless, it is often considered a transient, innocent condition that can be easily cured by distraction. Indeed, when people disengage from the source of boredom, the emotions associated with it usually disappear. We tend to quickly forget about boredom and the factors related to it.

But the question remains: Why do people feel bored?

In 1960, the Italian writer Alberto Moravia published his novel Boredom. According to Dino, the protagonist of the story, boredom is not simply the opposite of amusement:

“Boredom to me consists in a kind of insufficiency, or inadequacy, or lack of reality.

"The feeling of boredom originates for me in a sense of a reality which is insufficient, or anyhow unable, to convince me of its own effective existence.”

Dino doesn’t refer to the common sensation of boredom. He describes it as “an almost instantaneous loss of vitality – just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.” In Dino’s mind, the loss of vitality is clearly a synonym of loss of meaning. In essence, what Dino experiences is a complete failure in establishing significant relationships with the reality surrounding him.

What if the boredom we experience every day was a signal that our activities are meaningless to us?

Pursuing a goal has the power to arouse strong emotions. Our actions, suddenly, acquire a meaning. However, the moment a goal is achieved, or when its accomplishment is hindered or questioned, after a while people begin to emotionally disengage from it. Feelings like happiness, anger, or distress do not live forever. They start to disappear, and so does our interest in the associated goal. That’s when boredom jumps in.

Boredom can be a strong indicator that it’s time to change our goals or at least some activities involved in pursuing them. Experiments in social contexts have shown that meaningless situations can trigger boredom, and bored people tend to seek for meaningful situations to escape their condition.

The feeling of boredom though carries its own limitations. While it can force us to switch goals, it is unable to indicate the goal we should switch to. This is the reason why some authors claim that boredom may lead to negative emotions:

“...such as looking attentively at an animal corpse on the side of road during a long drive.”

(Bench, S.W. & Lench, H.C., 2013)

All of this describes a couple of aspects of the human mind.

1. The moment we get bored, we also start investing our time poorly. Our actions do not mean much to us anymore.
2. We should wonder why. Why am I suddenly bored, and what can make my life meaningful again, now?

In the moment of boredom, we must pay attention to ourselves, stay focused. Boredom will soon distract us, directing us towards random goals that may not be so interesting.