Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday November 03 2017, @04:54AM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday November 03 2017, @06:48AM (2 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday November 03 2017, @06:48AM (#591566) Homepage Journal

    I have some serious boredom planned in just a few months.

    When you've been working 110% for a long time, it becomes really difficult to let go, to do nothing. Try to stop working and you feel immediately bored: "there's got to be something I need to do". Coming down out of a time a stress, boredom is a good sign, is something to be courted. Because on the other side of it is letting go, relaxing, and actually taking time to smell the flowers...

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @09:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @09:56AM (#591612)

    Yeah, to just let go, and not worry that some inferior race might be gaining on you in your period of rest, that must be a blessing. Bless you, bradley13! May your white seed prosper! Heil Hitler!!

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @05:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @05:21PM (#591752)

    Those plants are not even your species, and I'm pretty sure their g-quotient is lower than the dumbest human. Probably shouldn't stop anywhere near the flower's neighborhood, no telling what might happen.