Chances are, three sentences into this paragraph, your eyes will start to wander away from the letters, your thoughts will begin to drift and a magical little rectangle from your pocket will save the day, ending your tortuous boredom. And I get it. It’s never fun to be bored. But we need to be. It sounds counterproductive, but being bored actually helps us in numerous ways.
When was the last time you simply sat down and just listened to your own thoughts? It’s probably been a while. Today, we have unlimited entertainment at the touch of our fingertips. Our cell phones are full of games, movies and random apps delivering instant gratification. Even when we’re not bored, we still pull out our phones. I often see people watching TikToks or playing games while simultaneously watching a movie. It’s a total stimulant overload.
Our need for entertainment, it turns out, is more about a need for distraction. When we don’t have anything else to do or focus on, our brain can start bringing up things that we might not want to think about. Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks calls this our brain’s default mode.
“The default mode network makes us think about things that might be kind of uncomfortable. When you think about nothing while your mind wanders and thinks about, for example, big questions of meaning in your life,” Brooks said.
This is why so many people rely on their phones. They want to avoid these hard topics. Ignoring these things lead to an increase in anxiety and depression.
“One of the reasons we have such an explosion of depression and anxiety in our society today is because people actually don’t know the meaning of their lives, much less so in previous generations,” Brooks said.
Embracing the default mode in our brain gives us the chance to work through the problems that get in the way of our mental wellness and happiness. You may think this doesn’t apply to you. I thought the same thing: that I wasn’t ignoring my problems, and that I wasn’t depending on my phone. Then I took a step back and took a look at myself.
At the start of the new year, I tried an experiment where I completely stopped using social media. My parents turned off all my screen time for Snapchat, Youtube and Pinterest, the three biggest platforms I used. It was only supposed to be for a week, but currently, I still have them blocked. The first few weeks were a bit of a challenge. I was in the habit of opening up these apps anytime that I needed entertainment, and now, it felt like there was nothing to do on my phone. My screen time significantly decreased, and I found myself feeling increasingly bored. I didn’t know how to entertain myself other than my phone. Quickly into this experiment, I saw some interesting changes in myself.
Without these dopamine releasing apps consuming my time, I began finding other things to do. I started crocheting, reading more and getting my homework done with time to spare. I also saw a shift in my curiosity. I began asking more questions about things, and with my newfound time, began learning more about these things that interested me. I found an interest in astronomy, extraterrestrials, and vernacular language (very random, I know).
I also learned to just sit in my thoughts. It was scary at first, confronting the things that I want to stay hidden in the back of my mind. But working through them really has helped my mental wellbeing.
Impressive! You made it through the whole article! If you can take anything away from this long spiel, let it be this: taking time to sit without something distracting our thoughts and considering those existential, uncomfortable questions can help us find significance in our lives and improve our psychological health.
