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Overview

When was the last time you had an idea? Maybe it came to you while reading Twitter or texting friends. Or maybe your great idea struck as you were watching YouTube videos for hours on end.

Some people have trouble coming up with new ideas. If you’re like the author, you find that your best ideas come when you’re bored, whether it’s during a long walk or in the shower. In fact, if we don’t allow ourselves to get bored, our brains can’t be creative. So how can we unplug from all of our digital distractions and benefit from boredom?

In this article, you’ll be given some tips for how to improve your digital habits and learn that boredom can actually help creativity. You’ll also be challenged to unplug from technology for a little while. Finally, you’ll find out more about mobile games and the right way to fake being sick.

Big Idea #1: Our avoidance of boredom might be hurting our creativity.

A Sunday afternoon with nothing to do can be the most boring thing ever. This is especially true if you’re alone, have no access to the internet and are not interested in reading a book. In fact, boredom has been shown to be so bad that 75% of people will pay money just to stop being bored!

Then, the participants were given a choice. They could pay $1 to make the shocks stop or they could press a button that would give them an electric shock. One-third of those who said they wouldn’t press the button ended up doing it anyway because they needed something to do while waiting for their turn to end.

So, we’d rather get a little bit of pain than have to deal with boredom. This is unfortunate because boredom has its benefits. For instance, it can help you be more creative. Think back to the last argument that you had with someone else about something or other. Did you manage to come up with good retorts and quips in the moment? Or was it later on when you were alone that those great responses came to mind?

When we’re engaged in the moment, our executive attention network kicks into action and makes us more alert. However, it also inhibits our ability to think about new ideas. It’s only when we are bored that this network switches off and frees up our thinking for creative ideas.

When we’re bored, our brains are still active. In fact, they use about 95% of the energy that an engaged brain uses. However, when we’re bored, we become less focused and our minds start drifting to old memories or the present and future. We create unexpected connections which leads us to be more creative than usual.

Boredom is not always bad. Sometimes, it’s good for you.

Big Idea #2: Technology offers great convenience – but this convenience comes at a price.

Take a walk down the street or on a bus and you’ll see people staring at their phones. Smartphones are great, but they can also be distracting.

The internet has changed the way we read. In fact, people don’t even read long texts anymore. They skim and skip around and follow links to other articles. So, this is affecting our ability to fully engage with a book or article that’s hundreds of pages long because we’re used to reading shorter texts online.

In a recent study, only 30 percent of people continued to read the full article.

Not only is the internet to blame for this problem, but screens are also reducing our reading comprehension. A study shows that people who read a mystery story on an e-reader were worse at answering questions about chronology than those who read it in book form.

In the same way, digital photography and our incessant picture-taking is affecting our memory. We take dozens of pictures per day, which actually makes it harder to remember these moments.