Why you should take your boredom more seriously

Your boredom is very insightful. Writer Anna Hartford shares her thoughts on why we should be more invested in understanding it.

Bored? That's not a feeling you should dismiss.

Writer Anna Hartford argues that people should start taking their boredom more seriously because it can be revealing of something more.

Hartford penned an article for the Business Day this week, titled 'Why you should get interested in boredom'.

It's believed that boredom allows people to be more creative and that it helps people discover their true interests.

This, Hartford says, is referred to as generative boredom.

However, she suggests that many of the modern (read: digital) distractions used to avoid superficial boredom could be causing a deeper level of emptiness, or what Hartford calls depleting boredom.

Some people say that boredom is very motivating. When we are very bored by something we recognise that that's not fo rus.

Anna Hartford, Writer and researcher

We often this of boredom too superficially, about just wanting to be engaged or entertained by something.

Anna Hartford, Writer and researcher

There's a deeper form of boredom: whether we feel vacant, empty, purposeless or whether we lose our sense of meaning.

Anna Hartford, Writer and researcher

This kind of boredom that comes with overstimulation or too many options [can leave us] stuck in some sort of loop.

Anna Hartford, Writer and researcher

We've seen this with lots of these new technologies, we can find ourselves trapped in certain cycles that aren't reflective of what's beneficial or valuable to us.

Anna Hartford, Writer and researcher

Listen to the intriguing topic on Afternoon Drive with John Maytham:

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