How many times have we opened a video on WhatsApp, and after 30 seconds, checked how long it is, even if it is engaging? How many videos have we half-watched and closed?
It is well known that our attention spans are shrinking to less than a minute. That’s the time we give to anyone who wants to impress us with a talk, a song, or a game. In all fields of life, we uniformly prefer shorter versions that are more action-packed and exciting. Test cricket can go on for hours with a few singles taken, many balls defended, and not much happening. Much like in life, routine is the rule, while events are the exception. We have all drifted to T20, where every ball must be hit, and the bowlers are always aiming for wickets because of the limited overs involved. We are thus in the era of fast forwards and continuous entertainment.
Is boredom tough to face? Of course, it is! But boredom can also be very useful as it can hold up a mirror to ourselves. The classic example was when COVID-19 pressed the pause button for the whole world, and suddenly everyone found swathes of time lying vacant in front of us. Many struggled to find something to do, when not given a routine. In fact, it was scary when someone said do whatever you want for the next few days. We had forgotten something that did not involve work or entertainment. Work stopped, and with travel restrictions, many started bingeing on OTT channels.
Sitting without doing anything and not being restless is tough for most of us. Even laziness has its limits, and can be boring after a while. As Yuval Noah Harari says, counting breaths from one to 10 can be tremendously difficult, as we get bored by breath number five.
In the pre-television days, as schoolchildren, we spent our evenings playing outdoors. After dinner, the night was spent generally whiling away time till we fell asleep. Summer holidays meant long hours of lazing away, and living without homework, tuitions, or a routine. The endearing Swami in R.K. Narayanan’s iconic novel on childhood spends a whole afternoon observing ants. He never mentioned being bored.
The arrival of TV did change our lives dramatically, as it became the “go to” entertainment when we had nothing to do. The empty times in our days were suddenly filled. The smartphone with its social media was a quantum leap in entertainment. Suddenly there was a TV in our hands, all the time! This was always grabbing our eyeballs, and not a minute was spent in unorganised thought.
Conversations became difficult even in gatherings with people lost in their phones. Every scene needed to be now captured, relayed, and broadcast instantly, without any time to savour the moment. This is constant excitement, which is addictive. Any void in this, even for a few minutes, becomes a painful withdrawal as we get bored and restless, and we are reaching for our phones!
Recently, I travelled on a four-hour train journey with an eight-year-old and his mother on the opposite berth. By half an hour, the child started saying he was bored. The mother had come fully prepared with books, games, and eats. All this lasted for a few minutes each. She tried to show him the scenes outside the window — a huge lake, fields, villages and people on a platform the train ran past. He did not seem interested or curious. The only solution that worked was the cartoons on the phone. Childhood is the landscape of imagination. Left to themselves, children tend to invent games without toys, and stories without books. But this capacity to imagine and self-entertain has been sacrificed at the altar of preformed content and passive entertainment. The current generation which grew up in this milieu thus has it particularly hard, as the definition of boredom changed to any minute with nothing to do!
Can boredom help? On an entirely different note, boredom is essential. All creativity needs some quiet from which new ideas can arise. We are all bombarded by thoughts and ideas of others all the time, we hardly come up with a new thought. We are passive consumers of opinions, and feel obliged to be influenced by them. Creativity needs a space which is not cluttered by too much chatter. Great ideas may arise during periods of relaxation when there is time to look at things differently. If sitting idle without running away to fill vacant spaces in the mind is possible, creativity can bloom in so-called boredom! Of course, especially in today’s world with our millisecond attention spans, and the doping devices.
Deaddiction from excitement and the ability to stay focused on a task for at least an hour would be a good beginning. This can be consciously achieved by staying away from electronics and sitting quietly for some time. This may seem simple enough, but it can be difficult when attempted. Taking up a hobby that involves long-term commitment, such as reading, writing, music, sports, or work, is a good way to train oneself to endure boredom. Creativity may be rekindled in minds overwhelmed by mindless information during a conscious break from constant entertainment. It would not be surprising if, in this era of coaching classes ranging from cookery to academics to speaking skills, there were also coaching classes for facing boredom!
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Published – October 26, 2025 05:18 am IST
