Boredom: Is It Good For You?

0:00Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and this is Science Versus. Today on the show, we're pitting facts against feeling bored.

0:14Across the internet, people are embracing being bored. Raw dogging boredom for one hour. Raw dogging one hour straight. No phone, no TV, no music, no moving, no sleeping for an hour straight. That's right. They're raw dogging boredom. There's all these videos of people recording themselves sitting on the floor of their bedroom doing basically nothing, in some cases, for hours. And why are they doing this? Raw dogging boredom. The problem is we've created a way of living where you do not need to be bored at all. And the second you feel bored, you grab your phone. Like people like to say, oh, I just can't be bored.

0:54I'm the type of person who always has to be doing something, right? That's justifying the addiction. Influencers are telling us that we need to push back against this addiction and embrace boredom like a lost art. They say that being bored is actually good for us and it could inspire us to be more imaginative and creative. We kind of treat boredom as if it's something to fix. But what if I tell you that boredom is actually the starting point of creativity? Einstein and Newton got their biggest ideas when they were bored and doing nothing. so would we all be einsteins if we just raw dogged some boredom today on the show the power of being bored what exactly is going on in our brains when we're bored and could we really supercharge our minds if we just embraced a bit of boredom when it comes to boredom there's a lot of I'm talking boredom.

1:51And then there's science. Science versus boredom will be coming up just after the break.

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3:11Welcome back. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Today we are digging into the science on boredom. And to tell me all about it, here's producer Michelle Dang. Hey, Wendy. Hello, Michelle. How do you feel about your boredom levels? Are you bored right now? No, I'm never bored when I'm talking to you. So when I hear people online talking about this, I do find myself nodding along because, I don't know, I don't feel that bored anymore. But I am one of those people who are always picking up my phone to look at something. So how do you feel? Have you been bored lately? I do worry that by constantly shoving things in my brain, you know, whether that's work, mindless scrolling, sometimes it does feel like you're literally just jamming your brain full of things.

4:02It's just this constant stimulation. and sometimes it really does feel like my brain is just saying, no, I'm too full right now. And it just wants to go and just be empty and I don't let it be bored and empty. So I'm very excited to know what is going on in my brain that is that feeling of just be still. Yeah, I wanted to know about that too. So we're going to dig into your brain on boredom And to start, I talked to a cognitive neuroscientist named Professor James Dankert from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Great. And James and a colleague actually did a study looking exactly at this, the brain on boredom.

4:46So let me tell you about what they did. So they stuck 10 people into an fMRI machine and proceeded to bore the crap out of them. Which isn't hard in an fMRI. It's a boring space. That's true. But this is like a little step further. So listen to this. Okay. So to do that, we had them watch an eight-minute video of two guys hanging laundry. That's really quite effective at making people bored. Do you want to see pictures of what it looked like? Oh, sure. Oh, my God, that video, that screenshot of the video of two guys doing laundry, I don't know why, but it looks even more boring than I had imagined.

5:27I think because I was picturing the guys outside doing laundry on a sunny day, but actually they're just inside a house. They look so bored. It's like a dim beige room. Oh, yeah. I would hate that. And this was like a four-minute clip that was on loop. They got to watch it twice inside the machine. And then they had their brains do other stuff too. For example, they had the participants watch an interesting video instead. It was a clip from BBC's Planet Earth, actually, with beautiful landscapes, music, a sea turtle, all that jazz. Yes, yes. I've seen it. It's incredibly interesting. Yes. And then James and his colleague, they looked at all their brains in these different states to see what was going on.

6:17And what James noticed when people were bored were changes in a couple of systems in the brain. So let me start with this particular one that was all lit up. It's known as the... default mode network. And this is a network of brain areas that is more active when there is no external task for you to do. So people will also call it an off-task network. It's active in things like daydreaming or mind wandering. It's active when you sort of prospectively think about the future. Have you heard about the default mode network before? Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I guess I associate boredom with thinking of nothing.

6:55But you're right. It's more when you're just watching guys doing laundry, your mind just wanders into its default state. Yeah. Exactly. Here's James. It just turned out that video was so mind-numbingly dull that they disengaged from it and activated this default network. And then what happened to the brains in the group that got to watch that interesting video with the turtles and planet Earth? Yeah, so in that group, it looked like the DMN was less active. So they didn't see the same pattern, probably because there was a bunch of great stuff to focus on in that clip. Uh-huh. That makes sense.

7:35So does it matter that whether the default mode network is odd or off? Well, the people online love to clamor about the DMN. Uh-huh. They say it's a really important system in our brain. And that part is true. We know that the DMN plays a role in our sense of self. Like it's active when we self-reflect, when we think about the past or the future, or when we process our emotions. All this stuff happens when we're just resting too. So is the default mode network always good when it's activated? Because I feel like sometimes when my mind wanders, It just goes back to these kind of negative thoughts, often revolving around the theme of you're not good enough in some way.

8:18Yeah, so this is the flip side of this. It doesn't make sense to claim that activating the DMN is always good and that we should just be, you know, sitting in a room shutting everything out for hours at a time. Right. For example, an overactive DMN can be linked to things like ruminating and negative thoughts. And of course, we know that we don't always think good thoughts when our mind is wandering. Yes, of course. Right. Yeah, you start watching this video about laundry, you get bored. Who knows where your mind is going to go when it taps into this default mode network. Interesting. What else did James find in this study?

8:56Yeah, so while James saw the DMN perk up when people were bored, he also noticed this other part of the brain that showed less activity. It's called the insular cortex, and it's part of something called the salience network. I associate the insular cortex with understanding what's happening in our own body, feeling pain. Yeah, yeah. And it also plays a role in figuring out what's out there in our environment versus what we're feeling inside, and then what to do with it. Like James was saying, it basically helps us choose what's most important at that moment to pay attention to. We're saying there's really nothing interesting here for you to look at.

9:33Nothing that would help you pursue a goal. Oh, and during boredom, that part of the brain dialed down. Yeah, exactly. So it dialed down, but it's also almost lying in wait for ways to escape the boredom. Because we know from other research that this part of the brain lights up and gets more active when people are given the opportunity to escape the boredom. like when they're presented something that's actually interesting for them to do. So James says that this insular cortex... This part of your brain, this network is trying to say, okay, I've just been bored to death. I got to find something.

10:10And so here's where we're going with this. Here's the punchline, yeah. Before my insular cortex completely switches off, Michelle, let's get to the punchline. So the idea here is that your brain is signaling you to find whatever you can to escape the monotony of boredom. Okay. Because, Wendy, our brains do not like being bored. And scientists actually define boredom as a negative thing, like a negative state of mind. When we're bored, we want something that matters to us, but we don't want anything that's currently available to us. And so that's why boredom is a sort of, it's a motivating emotion because it's calling you to find that thing that's going to work.

10:53But it's also an agitated sort of restless feeling because clearly if you're bored, you're not satisfying that desire to be engaged. And, you know, some people will go to huge lengths to avoid boredom. Like there's this famous study where scientists looked at whether people would rather shock themselves than sit around being bored in a room. Yes, I have heard of this study. But what, I never read it though. What did they actually do? Yeah, it's pretty fun. So the researchers had these people sit in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes. And they had electrodes on their ankles, which were connected to a button they could press to activate the shock.

11:32And when people tested out the shock, guess what? Most of them said the shock sucked and they didn't like it. Yes. However, these same people who didn't like it, 40 % of them shocked themselves at least once when they got into the room. 40 % within 15 minutes of being bored. of sitting in an empty room, almost half of them shocked themselves. And it wasn't out of curiosity. They knew what the shock was like and they knew they didn't like it. Right. And Wendy, there was somebody who shocked himself 190 times. That, I mean, sure, they liked it, that person. Right. Okay. And other studies have since repeated this, showing that many of us would rather shock ourselves or do something against our own interests when we're bored?

12:21Because I guess boredom just sucks more. I mean, people do, we do crazy things when we're bored. I remember this study from a while ago that asked people to name all the reasons they have sex, and one of them was bored, which isn't crazy, but I mean, I've had friends who sleep with their exes because they're bored. You know, they'll just text their ex, someone they actively do not like. Yeah. Because they're bored. Yeah.

12:52So then the question is, so we know boredom is a state our brain doesn't like. And we will do things that are bad for us in order to escape the boredom. But should we persevere in that bored state? Will it give us some benefit? Yeah, Wendy, that's my next question. If our brains get bored, could that lead us to the land of creativity? Exactly. That is coming up after the break. Right.

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16:33Welcome back. Today on the show, we're talking about boredom. Is this a state that we should be aspiring to? So Michelle Dang, a producer here at Science Versus, is about to tell us whether being bored can actually inspire creativity. So get it. Yeah, that is the big claim we're hearing from the internet people, that boredom will unlock and push you into creativity. Yes. To get some science on this, we need to meet Professor Gi-hun Park from Korea University. She's an organizational psychologist. And Gi-hun got interested in boredom about a decade ago when she was finding herself stuck in some pretty boring meetings.

17:12It was usually the faculty meetings are really boring. Nothing that interests me. And it's just passing time. Something like that very boring tone of voice and monotonous. You cannot escape. Like you just feel stuck. it's true it's so true yeah yeah and gihan would notice something about how she was spending time in these moments uh she was picking up her pen and doodling and then writing new ideas oh okay so planning some new new things new research ideas blah blah blah i can like occupy myself by doing it instead of feeling the torture. Oh, yeah. She's able to switch her brain into a productive state rather than kicking herself in the shins under the table.

18:03So sometimes she'd use that boring time to work out solutions for problems she was having or finding new ways to do an experiment. Great. And she started wondering, like, does this happen to everyone? And particularly, like, if we make people bored, can we spark creativity? So what Gi-hun did is she got together this big group of students and to get them bored and see if creativity fell at the other side, she didn't show them a video of dudes doing laundry. She did something a little different. She gave people a huge bowl of beans. And these are beans in two different colors, told them to sit there and separate the beans out by color.

18:47And I'm sure this sounds familiar to you, Wendy, because I asked you to do this experiment too. Yes, you did. Yeah, so I asked you to record yourself doing it. So here's a bit of that. Pour both beans into the largest bowl. Mix them well together. Start a timer for 30 minutes. Sort the beans one at a time by moving all the red beans into your second bowl. Okay. Here are my red beans going in.

19:29Chickpeas going in.

19:35Okay. Now I'm going to mix them up.

19:42Time starts now.

19:52And to make it even worse, Guihan designed it so that you did it. Just one by one using one hand so that it's monotonous. So Guihan did this with over 50 students in a big hall. And here's what happened. So they do engage in one by one. And then after five minutes, you can feel that the entire room was filled with autumn. Could you see the boredom on their faces? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. They were really bored. They become really slow. You can see their actions getting really slow. And then they were not like, they lost their emotions on the face. Right? The numbing kind of face. Wendy, you had that numbing kind of face by the end too.

20:45Oh, yeah. Here's some tape of you, if you've forgotten it.

20:53I forgot the rule about just using one hand for a moment, and then I was back to using one hand. Now I'm just kind of throwing them in like playing basketball. Gosh, it feels never-ending, though, because am I really going to separate them completely? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm getting bored just listening back to myself. It's funny, I didn't know if I was bored, but my mind kept wondering. It kept hitting that default state where I started thinking about other things in my life. But my hand would kick. Yeah, so that was the boredom arm. And of course, there was a control group too. Glihan had another group that she didn't want to be bored.

21:39so she had them make art with the beans on a white piece of paper for the 30 minutes. So after the 30 minutes of either sorting beans or making bean art was up, then came the creativity part. Everyone in the experiment had to answer a prompt, which I made you read out loud. Right. Imagine a hypothetical situation in which person A is two hours late for a work meeting. List all of the feasible and justifiable reasons person A could use to account for being late. so that person A would not be perceived negatively by their teammates. There are no right or wrong responses. Please generate as many ideas as possible.

22:21Okay. Timer, timer, timer. And five minutes. Let's go. Broken leg, broken arm. I mean, hell, broken ankle, broken neck. I think I want to run here. This feels like cheating, though. Helped older person with the bins, but then they trapped you. UTI. UTI is bad. Yeah, that's bad. Really big fight with partner. You found out your partner cheated on you. You gave birth. Then they should just be happy you came to the meeting at all. Rhinoceros incident went at the zoo. Because, yeah, like a rhinoceros maybe pooed on you again. Wendy, you came up with a lot of good ideas. Did I do okay? I always feel like I want to win.

23:09Did I win, Michelle? Compared to the study, I think you went above and beyond with how many you came up with. Thanks, Michelle. 35? 35, yeah. What did other people come up with? Oh, yeah. There were some really great responses that they got, too. Oh, Alien. Alien just visited my house, so I need to deal with him, you know, for a couple of minutes, and then I send him home. Oh, bird shit on my face. So I have to go back home and then change my whole clothing and stuff. I feel like I was on the someone shits on you sort of frame of mind. Yeah, wasn't it a rhino? Yeah, I feel like me and that person who said that would have really gelled.

23:48For a bird shitting on your face, you don't get two hours of leeway, right? You can clean that off. It's a pretty bad day, though. It's true. On the face. But what were you doing at a zoo before work? Good question. Okay, but then the question is, right, of this whole experiment is, had I done the creative task, had I instead made an art project out of beans, would I have been even more creative? Or did boredom inspire creativity? What did she find? Yeah, so when Gi-hun looked at all the data across the groups, she found that, yes, people in the boredom group came out with more unique and creative responses than the people who were making bean art.