The Surprising Power of Boredom: It Lets You Confront Big Questions & Give Life Meaning

""Bore­dom is a ten­den­cy for us not to be occu­pied oth­er­wise, cog­ni­tive­ly, which switch­es over our think­ing sys­tem to use a part of our brain that's called the default mode net­work," Brooks says. "In that mode, which kicks in absent any oth­er stim­u­la­tion, we must face "big ques­tions of mean­ing" - by their very nature, uncom­fort­able ones - in our lives.""

""One of the rea­sons we have such an explo­sion of depres­sion and anx­i­ety in our soci­ety today is because peo­ple actu­al­ly don't know the mean­ing of their lives, much less so than in pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions." "What has insu­lat­ed us so com­plete­ly from the need even to con­sid­er it? Why, "that thing in your pock­et with the screen, which you take out even when you're stand­ing on the street cor­ner, wait­ing for the light to change.""

Twenty-first-century technological advances include an AI boom and the smartphone, which have largely eliminated boredom. Eliminating boredom has mixed effects because boredom activates the brain's default-mode network that prompts deep thinking about meaning. In default-mode processing, people confront uncomfortable existential questions. The reduction of opportunities for unoccupied thought contributes to rising depression and anxiety as many people lack a clear sense of life's meaning compared with earlier generations. Constant smartphone use insulates individuals from facing questions of meaning, with people checking their phones even while waiting for a traffic light.

Read at Open Culture