A Brief Guide to Boredom

Boredom is marvelously complex. There are things we know about it, things we think we know, and things that we’d like to know. We know that boredom is an unpleasant state—it doesn’t feel good to be bored. We know that boredom signifies dissatisfaction with our current situation. And we know that it involves a powerful desire to do something else. We think that we know its causes. Boredom arises in situations that are not meaningful, interesting, or important to us. It also arises in situations that cannot hold our attention. We think that we know its effects—it motivates us to do something other than what we are presently doing. We aren’t quite sure whether boredom is a high arousal state (a state like frustration or anger) a low arousal state (a state like apathy) or both. We don’t know exactly how the body and the brain are affected during boredom—although we do have some ideas. And we don’t know but are trying to figure out why some people experience boredom more often than others.

In what follows, I answer three common questions about boredom. These aren’t all the questions we can ask about boredom, but they are the ones that most pressingly demand our attention.

1. What is boredom?

Boredom is an unpleasant emotional experience. Its presence signifies that we are unable to engage with our situation in a fulfilling or satisfactory manner despite our desire to do so.

In Propelled: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead Us to the Good Life, I offer a more detailed definition of boredom. There, I describe it in the following way: “Boredom is an unpleasant state that signals to us the presence of an unsatisfactory situation and which, at the same time, contains a strong desire to do something else. During boredom, we feel both frustrated and listless. We’re disengaged from and dissatisfied with what we do. Our situation doesn’t hold our attention. It doesn’t interest us. Rather, in a state of boredom, we’re moved to think of alternative situations and goals, ones that are more interesting and meaningful to us than our current ones. We itch to leave boredom behind. If all goes as planned, we do just that.” (Elpidorou 2020, 67 - 68)

2. Is boredom dangerous? Is it harmful?

Yes and no. Or better, it depends. It depends on what exactly we mean by “boredom.”

Most often, when we speak of boredom, we speak of an emotion. We have in mind a psychological state that depends on our situation and that can be easily alleviated. Understood as such, boredom is neither beneficial nor harmful, neither good nor bad.

Boredom can be a very powerful emotion. It tells us that what we are doing is not something that we should (or want to) be doing. It also motivates us to do something other than what we are doing when we experience boredom. Think of boredom like an emotional command. It forcefully directs us to do something else. Yet, boredom doesn’t specify to us what that something else is. And it’s up to us to figure out how to answer boredom’s command.

Every occurrence of boredom is akin to an existential crisis—relatively brief, often painless, but still vexing. Boredom is thus a bothersome call to find something better to do with ourselves and with our time. The literature supports this view. It shows that bored individuals don't always know what to do, but they do know that they don't want to be bored. The literature has also shown that the outcomes of boredom are many and varied. Boredom can promote prosocial actions and curiosity, but it can also lead one to eat more chocolate, set things on fire, shock oneself, or, in extreme cases, kill others.

But there’s a complication. Sometimes boredom is more than an emotion. That is, it’s not just something that we experience only sometimes and in some situations. For some individuals, boredom becomes a way of life. They experience boredom often and in a wide range of situations. They become “boredom-prone” individuals, which means that they tend to experience boredom often and almost everywhere.

Those who are boredom prone face a number of psychological, physical, and social harms. Depression and anxiety, anger and aggression, poor interpersonal and social relationships, lower job and life satisfaction, problem gambling, and drug and alcohol abuse, are just some of the potential outcomes of boredom proneness.

3. Still, isn’t there something good about boredom?

Yes, but what’s good about boredom isn’t the way that it feels to be bored. Nor is it necessarily what we do on account of boredom: sometimes boredom leads to great things and sometimes it doesn’t. What’s good or valuable about boredom is its function. Boredom is a psychological mechanism. It alerts us that our current situation is not meaningful, exciting, interesting, or engaging to us. And it motivates us to move out of our current situation and into a different one that is meaningful, exciting, interesting, or engaging.

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We are lucky to have the capacity to experience boredom. Imagine what our lives would be if we were incapable of experiencing it. We’d find ourselves in some utterly meaningless or boring situation without ever knowing it. Because of that, we wouldn't make any attempt to get out of it. We’d remain there.

Boredom can help us if we can help ourselves. With its help, we can get ourselves unstuck when we become stuck in meaningless, uninteresting, or non-engaging situations.