Boredom - an underestimated everyday feeling

Science - Boredom - an underestimated everyday feeling

A gray winter day and no one has time to do anything. The long wait for the late bus. A tough lesson at school. Sometimes it can all be terribly boring, tiring and almost unbearable. Boring to death, they say. Or bored to death. One thing is certain, nobody likes boredom. What researchers know about boredom - and what it can be good for.

What is boredom?

"Boredom is the absence of all motivating stimuli. There is nothing to push or pull me," says psychology professor Oliver Schultheiss from the University of Erlangen. "In scientific terms, boredom is a signal," says psychologist Maik Bieleke from the University of Konstanz. "It tells us that we may be wasting our time and encourages us to do something else." However, boredom research is still in its infancy. "The research that does exist shows that areas of the brain related to evaluation processes are active," says Bieleke

Is boredom a question of age?

"Children get bored more often and more intensely," says Bieleke. This is because they have fewer opportunities to shape their environment. "Their diaries aren't as full yet," adds Schultheiss. Children are also experiencing many things for the first time and therefore have no experience of how long a car journey to a vacation can take, for example. "Boredom changes over the course of life," says sociologist Silke Ohlmeier, who published a book on boredom in the spring. "It peaks in the teenage years. From the twenties onwards, boredom decreases steadily and then increases again in old age."

Are some people more bored than others?

Everyone feels boredom - but not everyone is always aware of it. "Because it is a fundamental signal, boredom often affects our behavior without us noticing," says Bieleke. One reason for this is that there are so many ways to distract or occupy ourselves these days. "It has become attractive to reach for your smartphone at the slightest hint of boredom." On the other hand, there are also people who find it easier to find ideas for something to do. They then say of themselves that they are never or only rarely bored.

Silke Ohlmeier describes in her book that this can also be a question of education and financial situation: "Because boredom is such a widespread everyday phenomenon, it is often described in research as a democratic feeling." This may be true for situational boredom - the kind you feel when you're stuck in a traffic jam, for example. The situation is different with chronic boredom, which can be felt in your job or current life situation. If you have little money, for example, you don't risk changing jobs and go to the movies or to the gym less often.

Should you put up with boredom?

"When there is little external stimulation, the brain tends to switch on the mental movie theater," says Schultheiss. Daydreaming is a strategy against boredom that can unleash creativity. "We need this time out for our brain." Bieleke believes that boredom is important in itself, but is not an end in itself. "I believe that we always have to weigh up what we want to endure it for." At school, for example, it can make sense in order to learn something and get good grades. Ohlmeier also advocates allowing chronic boredom to set in from time to time. Those who cram their week full of appointments are only numbing their feelings, she says. "It's important to look at things and admit boredom in order to be able to change something in the long term."

What are the benefits of boredom?

"Boredom is an unpleasant feeling and people do a lot to escape it," says Ohlmeier. "But the impulse doesn't give us any direction. It's a myth that boredom per se makes us creative." Studies show that boredom is perceived as even more unpleasant than effort, explains the sociologist. "But what we do when we're bored also has a lot to do with what else we do in life." People who watch a lot of television are more likely to fight boredom with television than with sport.

Can you be bored even though you always have something to do?

According to Ohlmeier, boredom is not so much a question of a lack of quantity, but a lack of quality. So you can have a lot to do, but find it monotonous or pointless and feel underchallenged or overwhelmed. One example of this could be parental leave, where mothers and fathers are busy with their toddler all the time - and are sometimes bored anyway because they lack the time for themselves and their cognitive abilities, says Ohlmeier. Even people with supposedly exciting professions such as surgeons or lawyers can get bored when they actually want to be something else.

Can boredom make you ill?

Extreme boredom makes you tired, you feel listless and burnt out. "Once we're really bored, it's hard to get going," says Ohlmeier, explaining that she herself suffered from boreout during her training. "Long periods of boredom are not relaxing. It stresses us out and makes us restless." In the long term, chronic boredom can have serious consequences such as depression, eating disorders and addiction.