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from the brought-to-you-by-Elon-Musk's-Boring-Company dept.
Is boredom necessary to our survival?
Every emotion has a purpose—an evolutionary benefit," says Sandi Mann, a psychologist and the author of The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredom Is Good. "I wanted to know why we have this emotion of boredom, which seems like such a negative, pointless emotion."
That's how Mann got started in her specialty: boredom. While researching emotions in the workplace in the 1990s, she discovered the second most commonly suppressed emotion after anger was—you guessed it—boredom. "It gets such bad press," she said. "Almost everything seems to be blamed on boredom."
As Mann dived into the topic of boredom, she found that it was actually "very interesting." It's certainly not pointless. Wijnand van Tilburg from the University of Southampton explained the important evolutionary function of that uneasy, awful feeling this way: "Boredom makes people keen to engage in activities that they find more meaningful than those at hand."
"Imagine a world where we didn't get bored," Mann said. "We'd be perpetually excited by everything—raindrops falling, the cornflakes at breakfast time." Once past boredom's evolutionary purpose, Mann became curious about whether there might be benefits beyond its contribution to survival. "Instinctively," she said, "I felt that we all need a little boredom in our lives."
Precede creative tasks with the most intensely boring activities you can devise if you want to have the best ideas.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 03 2017, @01:32PM (2 children)
So, if you're not bored, you're excited by everything?
No "yeah, that's okay"?
No "interesting, kind of"?
If I'm not bored, Im jumping on the couch like Tom fecking Crooose?
I'm rarely bored. I can usually entertain myself.
But am I excited allll the time? No. And I haven't jumped on the fecking couch in decades.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Friday November 03 2017, @04:08PM
Who doesn't love a good romp on the couch?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday November 05 2017, @06:44AM
I thought that was strange too. If something is not exciting, that doesn't necessarily mean its boring, just that it's routine or uninteresting.
I would think a world without getting bored is where I would be perfectly content to sit and do absolutely nothing for extended periods of time. Kind of like a computer, which has no problems sitting idle doing nothing indefinitely.