“Il dolce far niente” — the sweetness of doing nothing.
When was the last time you sat and thought? I don’t mean thinking about what you need from the grocery store that day, or the excuse you are formulating in an email to your boss for why your work is late. What I mean is deep thinking. The type of thinking that makes you temporarily forget where you are. The kind of thinking that happens when your mind takes the reins and is granted the freedom to travel wherever it desires. As an eighteen-year-old in modern times, I cannot remember the last time I was really bored. Except for the five minutes I spend in the shower every day, I rarely allow my brain to run free. From the very second I wake in the morning, to the moment I fall asleep at night, my brain is constantly being stuffed. Whether it’s scrolling through Instagram first thing in the morning, listening to a teacher lecture for an hour, doing my Stats homework, or rewatching the Office for the third time, and realizing that I know every line, my brain is only reacting to things. I find myself listening to a podcast or music on my afternoon walks that are supposedly meant to clear my mind. Even while writing this paper, I’ve taken Instagram breaks throughout.
We live in a new world where anything you could possibly imagine is granted at your fingertips in a matter of seconds. Although this immediate access to information has advanced our society in countless ways, it still leads me to wonder what this so-called “overconsumption” is actually doing to our brains. There seems to be a negative conception that hovers over the word “boredom.” For me, the thought of sitting somewhere without a phone or any source of entertainment sounds extremely unappealing, but is it important to be bored sometimes? Sandi Mann is a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, and in her book, The Science of Boredom: Why Boredom is Good, she states: “We’re trying to swipe and scroll the boredom away, but in doing that, we’re actually making ourselves more prone to boredom, because every time we get our phone out, we’re not allowing our mind to wander and to solve our own boredom problems.” So, what happens when you give your brain a rest?
The first cognitive benefit of being bored is that it boosts your creativity. When we are bored, our brains are actively looking for some type of stimulation (that is usually when we pick up our phones.) However, if the brain cannot find immediate stimulation, it begins to make up its own. This is kind of like daydreaming. Think of how many world-changing inventions were thought of by people who just had the time to let their imaginations run. Stephen Hillenburg, the man who thought of a talking sponge with a pineapple house and an astronaut squirrel friend living under the ocean, must have been pretty bored. This bizarre idea for a television series later became one of the most popular kids’ shows of all time, SpongeBob SquarePants. As a society, we have fallen into a slump of easy-access stimulation, but if we allow ourselves to be bored once in a while, think of all the innovative and creative ideas we could discover. I can’t help but wonder where my mind would travel if I turned off my phone and turned on my imagination.
Being bored is crucial for finding your inner calling. In his book, The Daily Laws, Robert Greene suggests that every person has a natural inclination that they were born with. He says: “You possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task– what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live. In childhood, this force was clear to you. It directed you toward activities and subjects that fit your natural inclinations, that sparked a curiosity that was deep and primal.” Greene stresses the importance of learning who you really are and what makes you unique by reconnecting with your inherent force. By crowding our minds with outer content, it is nearly impossible to discover our inner callings. Leonardo Da Vinci discovered his inner passion, or shall I say passions, through intense boredom as a child in mid-sixteenth century Tuscany, Italy. As a way to entertain his mind, he would spend his days in his backyard, sketching anything he could find: flowers, insects, dead animals. Through that, he discovered his passion for the bone structure in bird wings, which also birthed his interest in engineering. Da Vinci later became the world’s most influential painter, scientist, engineer, architect, sculptor, draftsman, and theorist of the Italian Renaissance. I wonder if Da Vinci’s life would have been any different if he had an Instagram or Netflix account. When you allow your brain to run loose, it will naturally drift towards ideas or dreams that you were meant to have. Think back to when you were a child. What did you do naturally to excite yourself? Whether it was sketching animals, writing short stories, filming music videos, or putting on fashion shows for your parents, you were obsessed with it as a child for a reason.
The average person spends close to three hours on their phone each day (two and a half of those hours spent on social media.) This may seem to be a harmless pastime, but scrolling through endless feeds for this amount of time shows actual psychological changes in the brain. Social media has the ability to tug your attention in a million different places at once. With just one refresh, you are granted a continuous flow of new content. Your brain is constantly being stimulated to release dopamine, a chemical that connects with your brain’s reward and pleasure center. This can be a highly addicting process. The more you scroll, the more your brain craves, and in turn, your attention span deteriorates and you lose your ability to concentrate long-term. Neurologist and neuroscientist, Majid Fotuhi says: “Not only does this lead to poorer cognitive performance, but it shrinks parts of the brain associated with maintaining attention. This ability of the brain to change is called neuroplasticity, and it has a big effect on your attention span and cognitive function.”
The Italians have a phrase for this: “il dolce far niente” — the sweetness of doing nothing. The closest expression Americans have to this is “killing time.” The next time you unconsciously reach for your phone or the T.V. remote, resist the temptation. Not only will you be giving your brain a well-needed rest, but you will spark your inner creativity and productivity, and you might discover things about yourself that you didn’t know.
Sources:
Greene, R. (2021). The daily laws: 366 meditations on power, seduction, mastery, strategy and human nature. Profile Books.
Mann, S. (2016). The science of boredom: Why boredom is good. Robinson.
The goldfish effect: Social media shortens our attention span. The goldfish effect why social media shortens our attention span Comments. (2021, August 18). Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.mytutor.co.uk/blog/parents/educational-advice/attention-span-social-media/#:~:text=The%20goldfish%20effect%3A%20why%20social,below%20that%20of%20a%20goldfish)
What social media does to your brain. NeuroGrow. (2020, December 11). Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/#:~:text=Social%20media%20has%20the%20ability,information%20is%20at%20your%20fingertips.&text=Not%20only%20does%20this%20lead,brain%20associated%20with%20maintaining%20attention
