"We can't stand ourselves": Why more boredom is good

While you're reading this, you might be sitting on the train, on the bus or passing the time during a break at work. You're bored. What sounds like an accusation is actually a very constructive state that most people have forgotten to appreciate. At least that's what Dr Marc Wittmann, a doctor and human biologist specialising in time perception, says. For years, he has been investigating the question of how we perceive time, using boredom as one example.

Whoever is bored is close to themselves

Often it's you yourself who boycotts this time. You take out your mobile, check your messages, emails, Instagram feed - or read this article. Studies also show this: The smobile is changing our behaviour. Smartphone users feel more connected to their mobile than to other people and ultimately to themselves. The psychologist explains in an interview how boredom can help you find your way back to yourself.

Dr Wittmann, when I look around me on the bus or train, nobody seems to be bored these days. Is that a misleading impression?

Dr Marc Wittmann: We have several moments every day when we are bored. When we're standing at the supermarket checkout or waiting for the train. The boredom is still there, but today we can react more quickly to get rid of it. We pull out our mobile - the perfect machine to escape boredom.

Why are we doing this?

When I stare at the mobile, the following happens: I no longer notice myself. I escape self-awareness. In that time, I could also spend time with myself: How I am feeling today, what I have experienced or would like to experience today. By pulling out my mobile, I'm looking to escape into something else. I'm too bored with myself.

**Was it different before the smartphone? **

In the past, you didn't have the opportunity to distract yourself so quickly. People were more likely to enter a state of boredom and were bored for longer. I always like to mention a photo from the 1950s at this point: On a New York train, many people are travelling into the city and all have a large newspaper in front of their faces. It's the same thing, of course: they fill the empty time with distraction. In this case, with the paper newspaper.

What is boredom anyway?

Boredom is a negative perception of ourselves. We can't stand ourselves in this moment. When I'm bored, time flows by very sluggishly and I feel time particularly strongly and very negatively.

Why is it still important to be bored sometimes?

We are exposed to input all day long that we can no longer process in quantity. If we are constantly bombarded with stimulation, we have no time or space to come up with our own thoughts. Sometimes we have to go through a valley of boredom to come up with the best ideas. This could be something creative for work or how to solve a personal problem. But much more often we avoid our own inner stories and their development by looking at other people's stories on the web. This blocks our own creativity. After all, developing stories independently is what creativity is all about. We can use this not only for work, but also for our life goals. Like all emotions, boredom is there for a reason. It always wants to tell us something.

**And what does boredom tell us? **

That we need to change something. Either by distracting myself or by asking myself: Why am I bored now? The philosopher Heidegger put it like this: Through boredom, I have the most immediate self-reference - about who I am.

We pull out our smartphones to make time pass more quickly. What role do mobile phones and social media play in our perception of boredom?

With my smartphone, I have the perfect distraction machine. I have the whole world at my fingertips in a small device and can contact anyone in the world via it - at any time and without end. In the process, I lose my sense of self and my sense of time. Self-perception and perception of time are closely linked: I escape myself and because I no longer notice myself, time suddenly passes very quickly. But when I'm waiting for something, I notice myself very much and time passes very slowly. With the smartphone, I quickly get out of boredom mode again.

They conducted studies on boredom and came to the following conclusion, among others: whether and how much we are bored also depends on our personality. For whom is boredom particularly difficult to endure?For impulsive people. The definition of impulsivity is not being able to wait for a reward. As a result, impulsive people get bored more quickly. In our study, we invited people to take part in an experiment under false pretences and then made them wait in a room for 7.5 minutes. Beforehand, we took away their mobile phones and removed all books or magazines from the room. The result was that impulsive people subjectively overestimated the waiting time, they were in a worse mood and they were very bored. And which characteristic lies at the other end of the spectrum? Who endures boredom well?People with a high capacity for emotional self-regulation. Self-regulation means: I don't automatically react to a situation. For example, if something bad happens, I can up-regulate myself so that I feel better again. These people can react more flexibly to the situation. In the waiting situation, they thought about what they wanted to do later or how they were feeling. For them, time passed more quickly and they were in a less bad mood due to the waiting situation. Should we all learn to enjoy boredom again? Can we practise boredom?Boredom is like playing the piano. If you want it to sound like something, you have to practise a lot. We also have to learn to be bored again. On the bus, for example: in those ten minutes, I can practise simply doing nothing. Not even looking at my mobile. In these times - small as they are - I can practise getting through empty minutes again. It's a kind of mental hygiene where I can think about myself: What do I want, how do I feel, how was my day? I regain more self-control and gain time for myself. And we should start using that time.Cover photo: shutterstock