Genevieve Bell on Boredom: TEDxPortland - William Hertling's Thoughtstream

Very interesting discussion on what happens we lack time for boredom.

Genevieve Bell

Interactive and Experience Research Director, Intel

Will We Ever Be Bored Again? And why it might matter.
Want to make a plea for boredom, and why.
At Hong Kong Airport. Every single person had a mobile device in their hand.
There’s a promise that there will never be nothing to do again. There will never be a moment of boredom.
As a cultural anthropologist, talking to people, she’s hearing that everyone says they are overwhelmed.
Is there anything we can do about that?
Charles Dickens in the book The Bleak House, coined the word boredom in 1852. It never existed before.
Choice and boredom are interconnected. Before 1852, there was no leisure time.
Some philosophers say boredom is a fundamental state of being.
If you study people’s brains when they are bored, their brains are literally lit up with activity.
There’s some important about the boredom of our childhood.
We’re no longer bored on train platforms.
Teenagers are bored. When teenagers get drivers license, they like to get together and be bored together.
Devices are very needy. They need to be plugged in, connected, have passwords, be updated.
When we get up in the morning we all check some form of digital communication: texts or facebook or email.
what would it take to wake boredom up? what would it mean not to be connected? not surfing the internet, not downloading an app. let’s embrace being bored.
there’s something about being bored that is incredibly rich. that propels us to be inventive, to be creative.
how do we choose to spend our time.
“go out and get bored!”