{"id":19165,"date":"2025-06-15T14:37:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T12:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/15\/the-big-idea-should-we-embrace-boredom\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T14:37:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T12:37:16","slug":"the-big-idea-should-we-embrace-boredom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/15\/the-big-idea-should-we-embrace-boredom\/","title":{"rendered":"The big idea: should we embrace boredom?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message<\/p>\n

In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15\u00a0minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the<\/a> participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times \u2013 even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study\u2019s authors concluded that \u201cpeople prefer doing to thinking\u201d, even if the only thing available to do is painful \u2013 perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.<\/p>\n

Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it\u2019s not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn\u2019t always<\/em> a bad thing \u2013 too much rumination is unhealthy \u2013 but it\u2019s worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it\u2019s ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nSmartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message
\nIn 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15\u00a0minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times \u2013 even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study\u2019s authors concluded that \u201cpeople prefer doing to thinking\u201d, even if the only thing available to do is painful \u2013 perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.
\nSince the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it\u2019s not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn\u2019t always a bad thing \u2013 too much rumination is unhealthy \u2013 but it\u2019s worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it\u2019s ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15\u00a0minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. …<\/p>\n

The big idea: should we embrace boredom?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19165"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}