Day in, day out, I walk in and out of the DC public metro station, just a quick three stops from WIS. One day, I looked up and realized that every single person (often including me) was on their phone. No one looked up, no one talked and only a few were reading books or listening to music. Practically no one was simply sitting there; no distractions, just you and your thoughts—pure and simple boredom. Society has programmed us to hate boredom, to eliminate its necessity. It is seen as a flaw to do nothing, seen as distracting from hustle culture. I’ve come to see it as a forgotten emotion; isn’t it good to have moments to truly rest and reflect?
When we aren’t cognitively occupied, we often reach for the uncomfortable thoughts or emotions that loom in our heads, desperate for attention. When I’m bored I’ve found to have my best ideas – my best understanding of myself, my purpose, my meaning. Have you tried it? Just….being? Most likely not, at least not often.
Ten years ago, my metro rides might have been the most boring 10 minutes of my day, but now they’re just another scroll. In our pockets now sits a little device with a screen, our phones that consistently call out to us. Let’s admit it to ourselves, we’ve all pulled out our phones just for the random sake of it; whether we’re in a study hall or a free period, on our commutes, or simply waiting for a stoplight.
On July 4, 2014, University of Virginia psychologist Timothy D. Wilson, along with collaborator psychologist Dan Gilbert of Harvard University, conducted a study in which they measured how much university students despised being bored. Volunteers were instructed to spend 15 minutes in a room with no activities or personal possessions, all items taken away. If participants wished they could push a button which would administer them a painful electric shock. Results yielded that 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women decided to shock themselves at least once; they would rather undergo pain than be bored.
I fear that in our modern society, we’ve lost the ability to reflect, starving for convenience and easy distractions. Reflecting on boredom and the urge to dig into these existential thoughts, Harvard psychologist Arthur Brooks said, “This turns out to be incredibly important, incredibly good.” Brooks, author of The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life, explains that allowing time for boredom helps people wrestle with more profound questions about their meaning and purpose.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 14, WIS has implemented a new cell phone ban, sparking hushed discussions of frustration among upper school members. As it stands, this policy will remain in place indefinitely, and over time, we will need to come to accept it. Coming from a school that recently implemented the same procedures under a new government law, it was an arduous change, but we persevered. Leaving the comfort zones of our phones – a resource society has made nearly essential – requires diligence, but maybe it’s not the worst thing. This generation has forgotten how to be bored. What if comfort lives in the quiet we avoid?; although it may sometimes mean disconnecting from social media, there is something to be learned and to embrace in spending time with just your thoughts.
In time, WIS students can attempt to adapt to this new change by building up tolerance of boredom. In commutes, simply sit there. In the morning, phones shouldn’t be the first point of interest. Can we handle that? If we can get better at periods of boredom, we’ll improve at the skill of boredom; we’ll be less bored with our work and school, and we’ll be less bored with the things going on around us. Most importantly, we’ll have to conform to this new transition to give ourselves the time and space to breathe. Who knows? We might just get happier.
By Chloé Enstad
