What Has Deleting Instagram Off My Phone led Me To Explore?
Let’s talk about the good side of boredom
As an addict to social media, I constantly checked my phone for notifications every 10–15 minutes as if someone had texted me while I didn’t look at it. But usually, it wasn’t the case. And that, my friend, was what I used to do all day: going “in-n-out” on Instagram, Facebook, etc.
Needless to say, at the end of the day, my eyes were dry as if I didn’t blink them for hours while staring straight at the fan, my neck was as stiff as a board, and my back hurt like there was no tomorrow because I sat in an improper position for too long.
Eventually, I gave in and decided to delete those social media apps off my phone for a while so that my body could take a break. Little did I know, the act of deleting those apps opened the door to a fascinating discovery that I didn’t see it coming.
I began to notice that I was more creative with what to do, which seldom occurred back when I was active on social media.
“Why don’t I bake some cookies with half brown and half white sugar and see how that turns out？
“Why don’t I write about this or that topic?”
As I was walking on the treadmill, a question unexpectedly came across my mind: Does boredom have something to do with creativity? And with that, I went on a fun little “research trip” to find the answer to my own question, as well as to satisfy my curiosity.
What Does Boredom Mean in The Evolutionary Perspective?
Boredom has often been associated with something unproductive, something to avoid, something negative. Yet scientific research has proven that boredom actually has some good benefits to it.
Because boredom is also a state of emotion like sadness or fear, it happens for a reason. From the perspective of evolution, boredom served as a signal to let our ancestors know when it was time to switch to a different task or seek other stimuli.
According to a research journal with the title “Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative?”, it explains that:
“If humans did not bore of things, it would be impossible to habituate to the continued minutiae of life and everyone would be constantly preoccupied with every minor stimulus to such an extent that they might not attend to real threats.”
In other words, if our ancestors got easily attracted to every single thing that was introduced to them and never got bored, they would lose their awareness of the surroundings, hence, prevented them from seeing the bigger pictures such as survival threats.
Another claim is that boredom could act as a signal for our ancestors to abandon one territory and migrate to another one to explore different food resources, which in turn, may increase survival chances.
What Is The Relationship Between Boredom And Creativity?
Have you ever come up with some cool ideas while you were daydreaming in the middle of an uninteresting task like washing the dishes?
In a research study by Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman in 2014, the result suggests that the group of people who did a boring writing or reading activity before doing a creative task appeared to be more creative than the control group — who simply just did the creative task without doing any prior boring activity.
Perhaps, we can take advantage of this finding and turn it into a strategy that can induce creativity, that is, doing something boring intentionally in a brief amount of time so that one can be more creative.
In fact, some of us might have done something similar already without connecting the dots like taking a walk or short break whenever we run out of ideas for solving a problem or to write about.
Going back in history, it’s not hard to find an example that could demonstrate the relationship between boredom and creativity. Take Albert Einstein for example. As John Spencer wrote in his article: “Einstein’s greatest scientific discoveries occurred while he was working a tedious job in the patent office.”
What Does Boredom Mean For Us Writers?
Nowadays, we’re being bombarded with countless distractions that constantly deprive us of doing the tasks we need to do. Especially as a writer, we need quiet time for deep thoughts and fresh ideas.
Neil Gaiman, a well-known author for his fictional books and comic series, discussed in an interview that:
“I think it’s about where ideas come from, they come from daydreaming, from drifting, that moment when you’re just sitting there … The trouble with these days is that it’s really hard to get bored. I have 2.4 million people on Twitter who will entertain me at any moment…it’s really hard to get bored … What I’ve started saying to people who say ‘I want to be a writer.’ I say ‘great, get bored.’
I doubt that I would understand what Gaiman said if I hadn’t taken a break from social media and learned about boredom. Because after all, who would want to get bored when they could binge-watch 6 seasons of “How To Get Away With Murder” on Netflix?
But now not only I see Gaiman’s point, but also I think his message is a wake-up call that we all need to hear once in a while, especially in this modern time.
Once we remove ourselves from distractions and allow our minds to wander, brilliant ideas will start kicking in.
Do Our Kids Really Know What Boredom Feels Like?
Susan J. Matt, a history professor at Weber State University, discussed a paradox point in an interview with Vox that: “Being still with yourself can give access to all sorts of ideas and musings that wouldn’t otherwise occur. So perhaps in our quest to end boredom [with smartphones and social media], our creativity is being stunted, and we’re actually becoming more boring.”
Isn't that ironic? The more we count on the Internet and social media to feel less bored, the more boring we become, in terms of creativity, compares to the previous generations who didn’t have any access to the Internet.
Perhaps this claim is best to be seen in children. Decades ago when smart devices didn’t exist, kids learned to come up with different things to do when they got bored such as getting the crayons out to draw or playing with their siblings in some fun outdoor games. It was a wild time filled with lots of childhood memories.
However, in today’s world, kids don’t seem to go along with boredom. Almost every kid that I met seems to glue their eyes onto their iPad or smartphone. Their parents took it as a relief when the kids didn’t bug them anymore. And when the Internet is down, both the parents and the kids are going crazy, which makes me wonder what kind of childhood memories will the kids have?
Kids can get extremely creative but only when they know how boredom feels like. I notice that when my 8-year-old brother stopped playing the iPad, he started to draw all sorts of car models and monsters on paper (and on the wall sometimes!). And they look pretty unique.
The Bottom Line
Boredom is more than just a boring feeling. So next time you find yourself getting bored, take a moment with it and don’t turn to your phone just yet because distractions end boredom, which can hinder your creative flow to come up with brilliant ideas.
And if any of you ever thought that “only boring people get bored”, you might think that again now!
This piece of writing is written based on my own research. For more detail on this topic, you can take a look through the sources that I’ve used through the underlined words within the text above.
Thanks for reading!
