Be aware of the upside of boredom
Updated: 2013-01-27 08:25
(The New York Times)
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At a recent news conference, President Obama gave the self-pitying impression that he was a lonely guy puttering around the White House. Days before his second inauguration, the excitement and ecstasy that suffused his first one were gone. In their place was possibly the weariness, if not boredom, of a man alone, resigned to more grinding politics and petty fights.
"Now that my girls are getting older, they don't want to spend that much time with me anyway, so I'll be probably calling around, looking for somebody to play cards with me or something, because I'm getting kind of lonely in this big house," he said.
As Maureen Dowd wrote in The Times, "he seemed to be intimating that the job he had fought so hard for and won against all odds was a bit of a chore, if not a bore."
But perhaps a little boredom is good, if not actually rewarding. In "How Should a Person Be?," a 2012 novel by Sheila Heti, her character says: "I like boring people. I think it's a virtue. People should be a little bored."
And increasingly, experts agree, saying boredom forces our brains to go on interesting tangents and be a little creative.
"Boredom is the brain's way to tell you you should be doing something else," Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, told The Times. "But the brain doesn't always know the most appropriate thing to do. If you're bored and use that energy to play guitar and cook, it will make you happy. But if you watch TV, it may make you happy in the short term, but not in the long term."
When bored, we can learn to entertain ourselves and gain more self-control, eventually feeling comfortable away from constant activity and technology. We're forced to be imaginative with simpler things.
But children are constantly stimulated by video games, gadgets and television. Researchers say adolescence is a peak period for boredom, and the toy industry has been trying to vamp up its products for maximum engagement. Lego, creator of the plastic building blocks with scant instructions, has seen a resurgence in popularity, but parents are lamenting the fact that the construction sets are tied to billion-dollar franchises like "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings." They now come with detailed instructions and ready-made stories, leaving children without the need to create on their own.
Clifford Nass, a sociology professor at Stanford University in California, told The Times that some essential qualities were lost when Lego became more like other toys. "You sit back and the Legos say, we will do the work," he said. Learning about frustration, he told The Times, "is a hugely important thing."
Those children may fidget in frustration and boredom, but research shows that it actually helps them learn more and retain more information than those who are forced to sit still, Mark J. Fenske, an associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told The Times. Squirming and doodling, seen as signs of boredom, can actually help keep people physically alert, he said.
But don't be too alert all the time. Unplug and enjoy it when the noise shuts down. As Ms. Heti told The Times: "I think stimulation is overrated, and persistent stimulation is exhausting. You sometimes have to be banal, tedious; make the rhythm go soft and slow, give the mind a rest." ANITA PATIL
The New York Times
(China Daily 01/27/2013 page9)