Are we at risk of losing our ability to experience boredom? Will boredom soon be extinct?
There’s just so much content floating around. So many platforms. So many issues. So many things to go to. So many people to text back.
TV used to be boring. If you were hooked on a show, you had to wait until next week to see the next ep. Now you can binge an entire season overnight. There’s so much instant gratification. So little waiting. So much expectation that we get what we want when we want it, and whole algorithms are busy monitoring us to tell us what we want and how to get it.
How do we stop? How do we just unplug and deprogram? Stop the yelling and the outrage. Stop scrolling. Window shopping the lives of people we barely know? How do we sit with discomfort? I forgot my phone last week, and sat in a public space on my own without looking at my phone. I was surprised how awkward I felt. How I had to tell myself to look around. Relax. Just be in my own company without distraction. I realised how strange it feels to just be. I felt self-conscious. Then agitated. Then bored. I realised I hadn’t been bored in a long time.
Boredom is nostalgic for me. It reminds me of being a child. Of being at my grandmother’s house listening to her clock. The one that shook the house with every tick or tock. Every second reverberated – so you knew how long you’d been there. How long you’d have to wait to go home.
I remember the length of a country town Sunday. That was when the shops were shut. Nothing was open. Maybe the newsagency for a few hours to sell the morning paper but that was it. No cafes. No shops. Nothing. You’d go to church. Well, our family did. At least something was happening. I used to think of it as a one-man-show. Needed a bit of work. As a kid we were regulars. I knew all the words to the hymns. I can’t imagine my kids tolerating sitting in a scratchy new dress on a hard wood pew, cut narrow to avoid comfort. It was eye wateringly boring. We’d stand after church and my mother would talk to everyone. And I’d just wait. It went on forever. We were always the last to leave. Home to my boring Sunday. Chores. Homework. Sitting on the back steps. Lying on a towel in the sun. Weaving long grass into bracelets. Just waiting for Sunday to end. Sunday went for a week. I miss those long, long Sundays.
Boredom always made time feel stretched out. Now it feels compressed. Smashed to smithereens. Sundays go for ten minutes. Mondays go for five.
Are we losing the ability to just turn off? Not meditate. Be uncomfortable. Sit with it. Endure. Collapse. Sulk. Withdraw. Nap. Feel sad. Feel lost. Cry. Think of something weird. Make up your own crazy biscuit recipe. Paint a wall. Plant a garden. Do something you would only do because the boredom had set upon you?
I notice children sitting in prams clutch iPads watching Bluey, for fear they might become discontent and scream. This may keep a child quiet on a trip to Kmart or a coffee catch up, but touchscreens are known to trigger intense dopamine spikes. The pathway to addiction, behavioural tantrums and delayed social development. Maybe experiencing boredom isn’t so bad after all. Be brave. Be bored. It won’t kill you. It will just feel like it might.
Mandy Nolan’s column has appeared in The Echo for almost 25 years. She is a writer, comedian and artist, is the preselected Greens candidate for Ballina, and was the Greens candidate at the past two federal elections.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
