The Lost Art of Being Bored

Boredom, it seems, has something of a bad press. We do what we can to avoid it, filling every quiet moment with noise or distraction. Modern children rarely experience idle pauses without a screen nearby. Yet such boredom isn't empty. Far from it: it's the birthplace of creativity. When there's no immediate input, the imagination steps in - stick swords are fashioned, kingdoms conjured from a patch of waste ground, and summer afternoons governed by unspoken rules. Psychologists call this the incubation effect; the best ideas often emerge in the gaps between activity, as the mind makes connections of its own.

I grew up in the 1970s. My summers were spent on bikes, in the local park, testing the rope swing over the brook (occasionally taking an unexpected swim), scrumping apples from the neighbours' garden, and many hours building, painting, and racing homemade go-karts, scraped arms and knees from the crashes included. Toys had their place, but it was boredom that pushed us to invent games, build friendships, and learn to direct our own fun. This is not mere nostalgia but a precise illustration of how creativity takes root through low-stakes exploration.

Take the six-week school holidays, for example. Six weeks stretches ahead, and a child is largely left to their own devices. This was manageable because children arrived at summer already practised in self-amusement. Today, many do not. Ask them to occupy an afternoon with no device, no plan, and you'll often find a genuine blank. That's not a natural stage of growing up - it's a direct consequence of screens filling every gap long before those holidays even began, so the muscle of self-entertainment never had a chance to develop.

Screens remove the pressure entirely. They intervene before boredom can form, leaving a generation fluent in content consumption but far less practised at producing ideas of their own. And that creative muscle only grows when given space.

This is not an argument against technology, but a case for protecting the spaces it so readily fills. Allowing boredom is one of the simplest ways to nurture resilience and originality. It asks only that we resist the urge to entertain at all costs.

With the summer holidays now under way, perhaps it's time to test this. If we want children who can think independently, solve problems unprompted, and keep themselves company without a device, the first step might be surprisingly simple: let them be bored. Then, step out of the way.

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