This may sound strange, but boredom used to be a normal part of life. Now almost every quiet moment gets filled immediately with phones, scrolling, videos, music, or notifications.
Do you think constantly consuming content affects creativity, reflection, attention span, or even peace of mind?
Now this is an interesting topic.
Absolutely no. Not even for a second. Oh, we could put the phones down, turn the TV off. Go somewhere quiet. But we will not do it. We have been and continue to be programmed to “need it.”
In the pre-Internet era, boredom was a real, heavy thing. If there was nothing on the three TV channels and your parents told you to get out of the house, you had to internalize your entertainment.
Oh, we had low-fidelity toys. Toys like G.I. Joe, Barbies, or Star Wars figures didn’t move or talk on their own. Kids had to provide the voices, the plotlines, and the sound effects. A local creek became the Amazon River; a construction site became a fortress. Imagination was highly physical and spatial. Winter time was planet Hoth, or we were an Olympic sled team. Etc.
If you wanted a ramp for your bike, you had to find a plank of wood and some cinder blocks and figure out the physics yourself (often with painful results). We were tougher. Get hurt, laugh it off, drink a Pepsi, go back to it.
Today? Kids stay inside all day, staring at phones. Watching ten-minute videos, playing in virtual reality games with other kids from all around the world. Along with? Pedafiles and creeps.
Even more sad is that our kids graduate now without the ability to spell or use math correctly. Why? They do not have to. Their phones do all that for them. Sometimes, the convenience and ease of technology are not the greatest. Just my opinion.
Peter