The Art of Boredom

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Our phones and the internet are two of the greatest tools in history. But their overuse (and the exploitative software design that fuels it) has simultaneously robbed us of many of life’s simplest pleasures.

One of those pleasures is boredom. Yes, boredom.

I speak with hundreds of people every month about their phone usage. At least three-quarters admit they reach for their devices specifically to avoid sitting with their thoughts. I’ve done it too.

Stress and existential uncertainty make the caveman brain feel bad; dopamine makes the brain feel good. Simple math.

That’s what makes reaching for your phone in every pocket of stillness so dangerous. Not only does it fry your attention spans, but it also deprives them of the deep thought required to wrestle with big ideas.

This video from Dr. Arthur Brooks and the Harvard Business Review has been making the rounds recently.

His call to action is simple: As humans, we hate boredom because it makes us think about the meaning of life. Some hate boredom so much that they’d rather shock themselves than sit alone with their thoughts, despite this solitude being exactly what they need.

When the brain isn’t actively processing external tasks, it flips into the default mode network (DMN). This is when we daydream, reflect, and wrestle with abstract questions. It’s also when discomfort surfaces.

With near-instant access to novelty, the device annihilates boredom before it begins. A red light or commute used to be an interval for thought. Not anymore!

By always killing the pause, we are building what Brooks calls a doom loop of meaning: the more we suppress boredom, the harder it becomes to find coherence in our lives, and the more we reach for the very devices that prevent reflection.

If you never allow the DMN to run, you never confront existential questions, and those unasked questions metastasize into anxiety and depression.

In other words, by dodging boredom, you outsource your mental life to whatever fills the feed.

Read the biography of any great thinker, writer, or politician and you’ll find boredom lurking in the margins. Long stretches of solitude and quiet reflection were the raw material behind many of the breakthroughs that shaped the hyper-convenient lives we enjoy today.

The irony is that boredom, when practiced, actually makes life feel fuller, as it cracks open the space for questions of purpose and significance. It’s a breeding ground for creativity.

We are living through the first era where boredom can be nearly eliminated. That shift carries consequences we haven’t reckoned with. If the DMN is the brain’s mechanism for building coherence, what happens to a civilization that collectively disables it?

These are the types of questions that I’ll personally be reflecting on in my periods of boredom during our 24 Hour Offline Challenge. I encourage you to join me ;)

See you then,

Randy