The Importance of Being Bored

Recently I spied my daughter playing some games on the phone. Upon talking to her, she further complained that there is only one game in her phone! She then make her case that almost all of her friends (“Well, at least almost all of them,” she conceded) has Roblox on their phones, or play it on a computer. I argued she doesn’t need to play Roblox.

Her defense is then she gets bored otherwise.

I then went on a long description of how that the mind/brain is actually made of multiple parts (or at least divided into multiple discernible parts, for easier and better understanding of how the complex brain is made of). That there is medula oblongata that does all the automatic stuff like breathing, the prefrontal cortex that does the active thinking and the middle part that-I-forgot-the-name that does the remembering things, and how when you get bored, they work together in linking the new things you learn into something you understand and remember. My explanation might be off a bit and surely not get a Nobel, but I am fairly sure it has a ring of truth and I have read it somewhere.

Films and shows depict being bored or boring as something that is extremely bad, or at least needs avoiding. Their view is that things need to be exciting. I understand that, especially if you pay dollars to watch a two hours show, and if you are expected to spend half of that time being bored and thinking about it, people would get mad. But you can’t expect the whole day or your year to be as exciting as a movie. Comedian keeps chaining jokes after punch lines, but if they do that in real life, they’ll most likely be getting punched instead. Another a bit different example, is even if you love someone, you don’t want to spend 24 hours, 365 days a year, talking to him/her.

Thus I argue that the brain also needs some time ‘separating’ itself from all the stimulations and information we received. In this fast and jerky world of TikToks and reels, it is even more important that we practice being bored.

So stop scrolling and go get bored.

Thank you for reading.