Whenever someone is idle, lazy, or has nothing to do, the vast majority of people tend to whip out their phones and pull up their social media apps. They are then caught in a seemingly endless loop of doomscrolling and dopamine hits.
But what if they didn’t? What if they had no form of entertainment or distraction and were able to feel the emotion that most people nowadays seldom feel?
Boredom has documented benefits for the mind and emotions. It can boost people’s innovation and creativity, and is also able to lower a person’s stress levels. Boredom comes from inactivity, which is something that forces people to be alone with their thoughts and forces people to be creative in order to entertain themselves.
It can also lengthen people’s attention span. When someone is just scrolling through one-minute-long videos, their brain is constantly rewarded with dopamine, a chemical in the brain associated with joy.
So when they are then introduced to longer, more time-consuming activities, they don’t get that quick pleasure, and therefore are uninterested.
This is also why those who are more prone to boredom become well-equipped to deal with it. They have longer attention spans and can keep an open mind and figure out new, innovative activities to do. They experience the benefits that being bored can have on the mind.
Social media causes most people not to gain these benefits. It causes people to hate even a taste of what boredom feels like. They would much rather be consumed by dopamine whilst scrolling on their phones, which can get out of hand.
When most people pick up their phones, they lose track of time and end up on it for hours. This can cause people to feel even more fatigued and not relieved or refreshed. Yet, those who own devices and electronics still tend to use their downtime to be completely immersed in social media.
The answer to this problem might simply lie in the hands of the consumer: those who are actively making the decision to download social media, and to open social media when presented with free time. People need to be more aware of the benefits of disconnecting from their phones. They would experience benefits and boosts in creativity and mental health.
When realizing that they are reaching for their electronics and consciously putting them down, people can finally use their brains to figure out something else to do. Although it may be unpleasant at first, as time goes on, they will feel the positive long-term effects of boredom.
Social media has grown and become more normalized in our communities, and most likely will continue to grow and flourish throughout the years to come. This may cause even more problems linked to the fact that people will be bored less and less as more platforms are introduced to the world.