I think part of the problem is we’ve really perfected computers to where they’re overly-effective entertainment machines. You can play games that suck you in for hours on end, you can watch videos and movies on any topic. Hour long video essays on isoteric and ultimately unimportant topics. 2-10 second videos each delivering laughs, cultural experiences and information, all queued up to watch one after another so you’ve watched 10 unrelated videos in a minute. And if that’s not enough stimulation now it’s becoming common practice put an unrelated video on part of all of the screen so you don’t have to get worried about being bored for a few seconds. Pepper the video with split second clips from popular shows or movies for an added laugh and remembering the reference fondly and you’ve got a recipe to never be bored for a single second.

We’ve defeated boredom and it shows. Now we as a society have to learn why being bored is good again, why our brains need some boredom so that everything else can have meaning.

People need to relearn how to go make stuff. Read books, read magazines, play instruments, ride bikes and skateboards and run and jump and have fun away from screens. I think this is a growing trend as people realize how bad for us these dopamine drips that are fed to us on our phones, computers, game consoles, etc. the rise of products and services to add friction to accessing our computing devices, the resurrection of feature phones, phones with intentionally boring screens to discourage use, etc.