"Our ego defense mechanisms automatically shield us from other unpleasant emotions, so why does boredom get a pass and sneak through so often, along with its close cousins, ennui and malaise? Boredom is one of those human traits, like appreciating humor or music or ocean views, that we take for granted without stopping to ask why we have those proclivities. The result is that we go through life preferring some things, eschewing others, and completely ignoring still others without asking why."
"There are two ways to understand boredom: through sensory neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Let's start with sensory neuroscience. The sensory neuroscience of boredom Our brains crave information to make essential decisions about food, shelter, mates, social bonds, and physical threats. And information, by definition, is all about change: changing patterns and colors of light, shifts in sound levels and pitch, shifts in smells, changing textures of things we touch. This is why our brains are wired to tune out steady-state conditions and amplify changes."
Ego defense mechanisms often block many unpleasant emotions, yet boredom, ennui, and malaise commonly persist. Many human proclivities—appreciation of humor, music, or ocean views—are taken for granted without examination, shaping preferences and neglect. Two complementary explanations for boredom are sensory neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Sensory neuroscience holds that brains crave changing information to guide decisions about food, shelter, mates, social bonds, and threats. Perception follows the Weber-Fechner principle: a roughly constant percent change in stimulus is required for noticeability, so steady-state stimuli are ignored while changing stimuli are amplified. This selective tuning produces frequent experiences of boredom.
Read at Psychology Today
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