The Case for Being Bored

Most of us can no longer stand in line without reaching for a phone. The moment nothing is happening, we fill it. It feels harmless, even efficient. But some psychologists think we are losing something valuable: the plain, uncomfortable experience of being bored.

In one well-known experiment, people were first asked to do something dull, copying numbers from a phone book, and then to think of creative uses for a pair of plastic cups. Those who had been bored came up with more ideas than those who had not.

The explanation seems to be that a bored mind starts to wander. When the world offers nothing interesting, the brain goes looking for something inside itself, and makes connections it would never make while busy. Boredom, in other words, may be where some ideas begin.

None of this means boredom is pleasant, or that every quiet minute is secretly useful. The argument is smaller than that. If we never let ourselves be bored, we may never give our minds the empty space they need to surprise us.