Lu Hanessian

“We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom.”

— Bertrand Russell

If there are three words that can make reasonable adults bristle, balk or erupt, three words that most children and teenagers utter with frequency, three words that annoy and worry us and which immediately precede many conflicts, impulsive decisions and activities of distraction, it’s these: I am bored.

Why do we feel so irritated by the utterance of this phrase?

What is it about the thought of our children being bored that can prick our hearts, jumble our minds, send us either scrambling for solutions, reeling with rage or shrugging in disbelief and resignation?

Many adults take it personally. Boredom can trigger feelings of frustration in parents if they think their kids have a “million things to do,” as many parents say, and especially if they have invested energy, time and money keeping kids busy.

But, bored is not the opposite of busy. The antidote to boredom is not over-scheduling.

Documentary filmmaker Albert Nerenberg says, “The biggest misconception about boredom is that it is just a sleepy irritant.”

Nerenberg, whose movie “Boredom’’ explores the subject in education and life, is a social researcher and a “laughologist.”

Based in Montreal, Canada, he travels the world interviewing people for his projects, leading “Laughing Championships,” and helping people in crisis through the power of laughter and hypnotherapy.

“I would say the expression ‘boredom’, which was essentially coined by the English in the 19th century, is universal.”

We have vague notions about boredom, what it is, what to do in the face of it both in our children and in ourselves, in the workplace and in the classroom. In our age of high-speed everything, how do we preserve our curiosity, sow seeds of patience, cultivate wonder and hard work?

Sometimes, it’s not what we’re doing but where we are doing things. Context is always key.

“All of us get into habits in certain locations,” says Bernadette Hennessy May, owner of Rhinoceros Toys in Haddonfield. “We get comfortable playing computer or other electronic games at home, but when kids are out of the house, the change in environment creates an atmosphere that offers an opportunity to try something new.”

Something new.

Think you know boredom? Consider these 7 surprising new facts about boredom:

1. Boredom is multi-faceted. Recent research has revealed there are several types of boredom.

German psychologist Thomas Goetz and his team measured and classified boredom. The first they call “Indifferent Boredom.” You are feeling low energy, but in pretty good spirits. The second one is “Calibrating Boredom.” You feel kind of blah and don’t want to feel that way but don’t know what to do to get out of that state. The third is called “Searching Boredom,” and in this bored state, you feel restless, maybe even irritable, and are agitated enough to be looking for something to do. The fourth is “Reactant Boredom.” You are a downer to be around, angry, grumpy, aggressive and all you talk about and think about is getting out of here. But these are not quite like the fifth type.

2. Boredom can be alarming. Goetz and his group created another study which engaged college and high school students, giving them PDAs, or personal digital assistants, which pinged at various times of day to ask them how they were feeling and why. The scientists discovered a troubling fifth type of boredom they were not expecting. They call it “Apathetic Boredom.” And they found it in 36 percent of their subjects. Not only did the students not feel much, but they had very little concern that they did not feel much. Apathy not only limits a person’s choices, actions and productivity, but detaches him from the impact his state has on others as well as any sense of responsibility.

3. Boredom is a stress state. Reactant and apathetic boredom are of greatest concern, because people act on those states and can have detrimental effects on their own lives and the lives of those around them. Feeling bored may seem purely psychological or emotional, but the story behind boredom lies in the body. Boredom is a physiological state.

Nerenberg explains: “New research shows that boredom may in fact be a stress state. From the outside, bored people make look like they’re slowing down, but brain scans reveal the opposite. Inside their brains are often speeding up, out of frustration. Also if boredom is a state of stress it calls into question the way we educate people which seems to institutionally require high levels of boredom.”

“I think there are three reasons kids get bored at school,’’ says Cherry Hill elementary school teacher Joy Patterson says. “First, the kids cannot see how the work they are doing is connected to their world. The second reason is they find the work too simple or too hard. Too simple, why bother, you are insulting my intelligence. Too hard, why bother, I can’t do it anyway. The third reason is they have not learned how to persevere through things that are not what they ‘want’ to do.”

Nerenberg adds, “The truth is kids, like most of us, have a high need for meaning and adventure, and that when they start getting what they need they become happier, and more civilized.”

4. Boredom is a relatively new concept. Even though, a century ago, Russell wrote, “Modern parents ... provide their children with far too many passive amusements … and they do not realize the importance to a child of having one day like another, except, of course, for somewhat rare occasions,” today’s boredom is in a league of its own.

As Nerenberg puts it, “We’ve never had so much to entertain us, yet we are often so bored.”

Indeed.

Not allowing our kids or ourselves to be in the moment without distraction, entertainment or reward (games and social media activate the brain’s reward system, which is the same as the addiction pathway) does not allow us all to develop the part of us that observes, empathizes, wonders, questions, connects, relaxes and savors.

Giving our kids devices to soothe boredom can unintentionally reinforce their addiction pathways and reduce their capacity for impulse control.

Given the choice, would kids choose an electronic game over one with no battery? Are board games ... bored games?

“The change I see in how children want to play games that are not electronic is that they want a game that they can get started quickly and then can make more difficult as they learn the basic rules,” says May. She creates workshops for kids and facilitates hand-on games in her store.

5. Understanding their own boredom helps kids grow and learn: Teaching our kids to understand their own experience of boredom can actually deepen their insight, engage with the world in more meaningful ways, and help them to learn with more intention and remember what they’ve learned.

Two years ago, my younger son’s friend came over to “play.” They were both 11. Within 30 seconds of the boy’s arrival to our house, he sat on the couch, slumped over and sighed. I asked him if he was alright. He didn’t look up, but did mumble, “I’m bored.” To which I replied, “Already, huh?”

I walked with them into the forest next to our home, to the stick fort my boys and husband had been working on over the past few weekends, and the boy looked up at it, shrugged, slumped and sighed again and said, “Can we go now?”

Without our curiosity about a child’s state, how can our kids come to know that they have an inner life, that their fixation on inanimate objects is not only an unnatural state but a potentially harmful one?

Nerenberg says, “I think it’s important to distinguish so-called good boredom from bad. We are a very ambitious and easily bored species. If we didn’t get bored we might still be prehistoric cavemen. That’s good boredom. Bad boredom is institutionalized boredom designed to essentially crush the human spirit.”

6. Boredom can be a precursor to creativity and invention. In neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel’s New York Times bestseller “Brainstorm,” he shares his acronym describing the hallmarks and very purpose of adolescence: ESSENCE.

The ES stands for Emotional Spark, the SE for Social Engagement; the N for Novelty and the CE for Creative Engagement. Novelty, he says, is one of the most exciting aspects of adolescence in that, when harnessed positively, can lead a teen “away from impulsive actions and toward growth, (brain) integration, innovation.” He reminds us that some of the greatest inventors in the world are adolescents or had their big ideas during adolescence. Boredom a teen trait? Myth.

7. Harnessing the power behind boredom in childhood can boost a person’s adult well being. There is a strong scientifically proven connection between positive childhood experiences around imagination, creativity, connection, unstructured play time, reflection and self-agency ... and overall health — in adulthood. Studies exploring adverse childhood experiences — devoid of play — have much worse adult outcomes from higher rates of crime, substance abuse, addiction, incarceration to suicide, as opposed to kids who may have lacked positive relational, family or economic experiences in childhood but did have opportunities to play.

Parents who feel compelled to fill in the blanks for their kids and pack their schedules with activity can unwittingly eclipse a child’s sense of self-discovery, minimizing opportunities for feeling and resolving emotional struggles, and bypassing moments of spontaneous discovery that naturally arise through the process of learning to just be in the moment.

Teachers who may feel frustrated that students prefer recess to class work might find it interesting to know that play grows the brain.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that kids like recess more than class,’’ Nerenberg says. “We should be surprised though that their brains are likely growing far faster when they’re at recess due to the power of play. I believe the next obvious frontier for learning would be harnessing play and laughter.”

Patterson, well-versed in the science of connection and engagement, is already teaching that frontier. She says, “We have allowed devices to take the place of interaction. Connections anchors us to each other. Helps us to endure our struggles with the support of others. Connections help us to truly celebrate the successes.”

Science shows us play and laughter promote brain growth through the ability of the brain to change and re-wire itself. Perhaps a good way to view boredom, then, is to see it as the stress of disconnection, the effect of a play deficit.

“Connections help us to be human. Engagement allows for us to connect,” adds Patterson. “It shows that we have similarities and differences. Those things that makes us one and yet unique at the same time.”