I was brushing my teeth one morning when I was suddenly gripped by the urge to check my phone.
Later that day, while waiting in line at Tim Hortons, I noticed myself once again drawn to stare at the palm-sized screen, reflexively rooting for hits of digital dopamine on Reddit. And I wondered, when did I start feeling the need to fill any period of mental dead air, no matter how short, with stimulation?
As a people, we are becoming more bored than ever before. We live in an age where endless distraction is a tap and swipe away, but studies suggest boredom is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially among younger people. Ironically, it appears our efforts to avoid boredom by engaging in digital stimulation are only making us more bored overall.
The life and health consequences of chronic boredom are wide ranging. It has been associated with mood and anxiety disorders — which have surged in recent years — as well as increased substance use, poor academic or work performance and a reduced sense of meaning or purpose.
Some experts say the solution to this collective listlessness is to reframe boredom from something to avoid to an opportunity to find what’s truly meaningful.
“Boredom is neither good nor bad — it’s just a signal,” said James Danckert, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Waterloo and author of a book on the psychology of boredom. “It’s a signal of want, it’s a signal of desire that you want to be engaged. What makes it good or bad is what you do with it.”
How your phone is making you more bored
A number of studies in recent years have revealed a concerning rise in boredom among young people. And a recent meta-analysis of 59 different papers found that people prone to boredom are also more likely to report problematic social media usage.
“When we are seeking stimulation from digital media … it’s like an endless chase of something that is unattainable,” said Katy Tam, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who has spent her career studying boredom and its implications.
In a 2024 paper, Tam proposed a causal relationship between the two — that consuming digital media is directly making us more bored. In bombarding our brains with high-stimulation content, we’re raising our baseline tolerance for engagement, making the minutiae of daily life more boring in comparison, her paper suggested.
In another 2024 study, which included over 1,200 post-secondary students from Canada and the U.S., Tam found that swiping through or fast-forwarding videos to relieve boredom, which her team called “digital switching,” can actually increase boredom.
“When people are switching, they’re not actually paying attention to what they’re watching right now,” Tam said. “And this kind of disengagement actually makes them feel more bored.”
It comes back to our desire for meaning and agency. “Most of what we do on social media and our phones is passive,” said Danckert. “You’re not making decisions about what you’re taking in; you’re letting the algorithm make the decisions for you.”
Simply put, boredom is a state of yearning for activities we find fulfilling. While distracting ourselves with a screen might take our minds off that for a while, it does little to bring meaning into our lives, Danckert said. When we put the phone down, that void remains unfilled.
The bored generation
The brunt of this vicious cycle of boredom is felt by the youngest generations, many of whom have grown up with the internet and social media. It has some psychologists worried for their future development.
”(The internet has become) a digital babysitter in many cases,” said Todd Cunningham, an assistant professor of applied psychology and human development at U of T. “The kids come home, the kids are bored, and we’re very busy so we give them a screen.”
In past decades, when kids were bored, they were encouraged to explore outside, play with friends and learn new skills or hobbies, Cunningham said. These important activities have been replaced by screen time, and as a result, “kids are just not socializing the same way.”
For children too often absorbed in screens, “it is impacting their self-regulation,” Cunningham said. “As kids get older, it’s harder to have sustained attention on a task. With how easy it is to go on YouTube and watch a video, it’s hard for us to keep kids engaged in the activities that they’re doing.”
The topic has been well-documented. A paper published in August found early-childhood exposure to social media to be linked to difficulties with sustained attention or focusing on a task, as well as certain social and emotional challenges.
Why boredom can be good for you
There are “absolutely” benefits to small periods of boredom, said Abby Goldstein, chair of the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
“For a lot of people, boredom opens up opportunities to engage in more creative thinking, to use imagination. It helps you build emotional regulation strategies, because it is oftentimes a state of restlessness or discomfort,” Goldstein explained.
We shouldn’t try to eliminate boredom, but redefine our relationship with it. If you find an activity you’re engaged in boring, ask yourself if you could reframe it in a way that gives it meaning, Cunningham suggested.
If you’re chronically bored, it may be time to interrogate why you’re feeling that way. Do you feel a lack of agency, that you’re not in control of the goals you’re pursuing? Do you find your daily routines unfulfilling? Is there a lack of meaning in your life?
If so, that could be a sign to make a change, whether it be picking up a new art or sport, volunteering in the community or even embarking on a career change. We need positive activities that instil a sense of meaning or fulfilment in our lives, according to Cunningham.
If your child complains that they’re bored, ask them to think about what they could do to fill the unstructured time, Goldstein advised. “Instead of handing them a very specific activity, maybe give them something like crayons or encourage them to go outside,” allowing them to use their imagination and develop a sense of agency.
“Boredom is an emotion that we naturally feel in our life, and we all have to learn how to respond to it,” Tam said. “If the response every time a child says ‘I’m bored’ is handing them a screen, they may have fewer opportunities to figure out for themselves what to do with that feeling.”
