7 ms·

Why boredom is anything but boring

dschiptsov 11y ago
Because that feeling of boredom has been evolved to avoid getting stuck into reatricted, repetitive behavior patterns - behavioral infinite loops (increased feeling of boredom should act as a breaking threshold). Mield forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops.
- epalmer 11y ago
  > Mield forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops. Attribution please.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Not sure why you got downvoted, I'd also be interested for the sources on that as it's a bold statement just thrown out there.
  - dschiptsov 11y ago
    Even the wikipedia page tells us that repetitiveness is one of hallmarks of Asperger. The question why, still unanswered, is much more tricky. It seems that, like it is with a language and many other traits, there is a genetic predisposition and environmental conditioning (training). It seems that autistic people has some genetically transmitted factors, which, if behavior patterns in early childhood is not corrected, would result in behavioral deviations, such as extreme shyness, inability to maintain an eye contact, sociophobia etc. The famous "mind blindness", it seems, is an effect, a symptom, not the cause. Those children just didn't train themselves enough to recognize facial expression patterns properly because, perhaps, some inherited changes in the "social areas" of the brain which, for example, perform facial expression recognition. Why are such areas supposedly exist? Because even newborns could distinguish calm and friendly face from angry, etc. Facial expressions is the most efficient way to read other people's emotions, along with other non-verbal bodily ques, such as posture and jerky movements. No one taught them to do it, so it is somehow hard-wired. Animal, of course, also read body-language, much better than we are. Inability to read (or rather interpret) other people result in excessive anxiety, almost physical discomfort, and repetitiveness, as an effect, is probably an acquired habituation to deal with that anxiety.
    - adrusi 11y ago
      I think "too many behavioral loops" is an elegant way of succinctly explaining a lot of the symptoms of autism, but there's more to it, and moreover, "too many behavioral loops" can describe other forms of cognitive dysfunction. Anxiety disorders like OCD come to mind. Anyway "Mield [sic?] forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops" is incorrect. I don't think that simply exhibiting the "behavioral loop" symptoms would be sufficient for a diagnosis at least.
    - mercer 11y ago
      I think you're close, but based on my layman's research (and my own experiences), the theory that in my opinion best explains the variety of symptoms (anxiety, meltdowns, sensory processing issues, mind blindness, repetitive behavior and obsessive thought, etc.) is the 'Intense World Theory'. The basic idea is that people with autism (or at least a big 'subset' of what we now call autism) are born with heightened sensitivities (or 'differences', in some way) on a very fundamental level. Whatever the exact cause, the result is frequent (high-functioning) and sometimes constant ('full-blown', to use the proper term :P) overload. Or to put it differently, from the outside it looks like autistics are trying to navigate a dark basement with dark shades, where perhaps the real situation is that they're trying to navigate this room with night-vision goggles. In both cases they keep bumping into things and are 'deficient' in a number of ways. However, in the first interpretation, the problem is that the bare bulb does not provide enough light when wearing shades, whereas in the second interpretation the autistic is blinded because the light overloads his night-vision goggles. Obviously, which of these is true has effects on how to treat the problem, assuming it's always one or the other and assuming there's not a third option, of course. There is growing support of this theory, and Temple Grandin touches on it in her book 'The Autistic Mind' (which I find refreshingly hard-sciencey in its approach. More emphasis on brain than on mind, so to speak). That said, a common criticism is that Intense World Theory perhaps explains a bit too much. And it's relatively new and basically the opposite of many of the previous theories. Despite this caveat, the reason why I strongly support the theory, even if it might ultimately be entirely or partly wrong, is that it fits much better with the self-reported experience of actual autists, both high-functioning and low-functioning (in the cases where they find a way to communicate). And actually listening to the experience of the person suffering from something strikes me as rather crucial when you start talking about causes. One reason why I dismissed the possibility that I might be autistic is that I simply did not identify with the descriptions. It was only after the diagnosis that I realized that the symptoms were ridiculously applicable to myself; it was just the underlying explanation that seemed like the opposite of my own experience. It baffles me that problems making eye-contact (the symptom) is still very often said to be because of an inability to understand it, or something like that (the purported cause), when most autistics I know or read about self-describe the cause as being 'overstimulated' and simply not being able to maintain eye contact because it's all 'just too much'. I can strongly recommend 'The Autistic Brain', by the way. It's very enlightening.
- tdkl 11y ago
  > reatricted, repetitive behavior patterns Those command our lives anyway, the only thing is if we train ourselves good or bad ones (and know the difference).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
alva 11y ago
Boredom is extremely important to me, although potentially there is something else at play. Some of the biggest life decisions I make come at the end of a spell of boredom. Either as a result of too long doing monotonous work, or purposely self-induced, perhaps in order to let my subconscious do all the work and let a solution float to the surface.
dhimes 11y ago
I can't stand those kinds of questionnaires where you have to choose between two extreme answers to an ill-posed question. (The thought of watching someone else's vacation pictures bores you-- agree/disagree: It depends on the person! duh!) For what it's worth, I got a 4/28.
- cfcef 11y ago
  Forced-choice is deliberate because it maximizes the information of the question. If you put in intermediate options, that can mask real differences by letting peoples' differing preferences for certainty influence whether their responses are informative or not. (People have information or preferences they don't even realize they have, like in some perceptual tasks, and you can't detect this without something like a forced-choice because if you give subjects any other options, they'll just say they don't know.)
  - dhimes 11y ago
    Interesting. Forced-choice is ok if the question is completely clear. In many cases you have to assume information that makes the difference in which choice you pick, I find. Unless that in itself is what is being tested (do you implicitly supply optimistic or pessimistic information? for example). The problem with these questionnaires is that they get a lot of information from people who don't take it seriously so they don't learn anything either. In other words, it's my preference for clarity that is making my responses uninformative for the survey-giver.
stepvhen 11y ago
I haven't had a work task at my job for 6 months, sans a week of QA testing, and a few days in SQL. I come to work, and have to be left to my own devices, and I never connected my personal laptop to the internet there. I tried to study text books and work on projects, and that worked most of the time, but not all the time. Its absolutely exhausting finding something to do that looks like work, for at least 4 hours every day, for 6 months, with very limited options. That tendency for boredom has leaked into other parts of my life and I am actively trying to fight it, and that is difficult. I hope this research continues and turns up decent conclusions. For the record, I gave my two-weeks this past week. 6 months is long enough.
- delluminatus 11y ago
  I just want to say, well done on giving your notice. To someone who's never experienced it, it might seem like having no work would be great, but it's actually terrible for our sense of self-worth in my experience. A surprising number of people are too afraid to leave a position even if they feel it's soul-sucking. It takes serious guts to leave a steady job even if it sucks. Good luck finding a more exciting position!
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  Did you have a new job lined up or leap into the unknown? If you had a new job, was the pay higher, lower or same? I guess I'm asking if people are willing to take less pay for less boredom.
  - stepvhen 11y ago
    Due to the family illness I mentioned in another comment, I have come into some money. I am actually going back to school, and don't have much desire to work. Maybe at a coffee shop, just so weekends don't lose their meaning.
- dhd415 11y ago
  I was once in a similar position at a startup in the early 00's that was trying to "pivot" to a service model that was more profitable. Like you, it was hard for me to keep my boredom and lack of work productivity from spilling over into other areas of my life. I was starting to worry that it was going to damage my work ethic and ability to focus. I eventually got laid off and found another job that was more fast-paced and challenging and was relieved to find that I was able to jump right back into it. I hope the same is true for you!
wfo 11y ago
I think any treatment of boredom, scientific or not, is woefully incomplete without reference to the man who understood it better than anyone, Soren Kierkegaard. He uses it as a vehicle for discussion and engages in it at a level I haven't seen since. This particularly funny and biting essay should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding it from a philosophical or psychological context: http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/145.%20THE%20ROTATION%20OF%20CROPS.pdf http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/145.%20THE%2...

Because that feeling of boredom has been evolved to avoid getting stuck into reatricted, repetitive behavior patterns - behavioral infinite loops (increased feeling of boredom should act as a breaking threshold). Mield forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops.

epalmer 11y ago
> Mield forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops. Attribution please.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Not sure why you got downvoted, I'd also be interested for the sources on that as it's a bold statement just thrown out there.
- dschiptsov 11y ago
  Even the wikipedia page tells us that repetitiveness is one of hallmarks of Asperger. The question why, still unanswered, is much more tricky. It seems that, like it is with a language and many other traits, there is a genetic predisposition and environmental conditioning (training). It seems that autistic people has some genetically transmitted factors, which, if behavior patterns in early childhood is not corrected, would result in behavioral deviations, such as extreme shyness, inability to maintain an eye contact, sociophobia etc. The famous "mind blindness", it seems, is an effect, a symptom, not the cause. Those children just didn't train themselves enough to recognize facial expression patterns properly because, perhaps, some inherited changes in the "social areas" of the brain which, for example, perform facial expression recognition. Why are such areas supposedly exist? Because even newborns could distinguish calm and friendly face from angry, etc. Facial expressions is the most efficient way to read other people's emotions, along with other non-verbal bodily ques, such as posture and jerky movements. No one taught them to do it, so it is somehow hard-wired. Animal, of course, also read body-language, much better than we are. Inability to read (or rather interpret) other people result in excessive anxiety, almost physical discomfort, and repetitiveness, as an effect, is probably an acquired habituation to deal with that anxiety.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    I think "too many behavioral loops" is an elegant way of succinctly explaining a lot of the symptoms of autism, but there's more to it, and moreover, "too many behavioral loops" can describe other forms of cognitive dysfunction. Anxiety disorders like OCD come to mind. Anyway "Mield [sic?] forms of autism, by the way, is when you have too many of such behavioral loops" is incorrect. I don't think that simply exhibiting the "behavioral loop" symptoms would be sufficient for a diagnosis at least.
  - mercer 11y ago
    I think you're close, but based on my layman's research (and my own experiences), the theory that in my opinion best explains the variety of symptoms (anxiety, meltdowns, sensory processing issues, mind blindness, repetitive behavior and obsessive thought, etc.) is the 'Intense World Theory'. The basic idea is that people with autism (or at least a big 'subset' of what we now call autism) are born with heightened sensitivities (or 'differences', in some way) on a very fundamental level. Whatever the exact cause, the result is frequent (high-functioning) and sometimes constant ('full-blown', to use the proper term :P) overload. Or to put it differently, from the outside it looks like autistics are trying to navigate a dark basement with dark shades, where perhaps the real situation is that they're trying to navigate this room with night-vision goggles. In both cases they keep bumping into things and are 'deficient' in a number of ways. However, in the first interpretation, the problem is that the bare bulb does not provide enough light when wearing shades, whereas in the second interpretation the autistic is blinded because the light overloads his night-vision goggles. Obviously, which of these is true has effects on how to treat the problem, assuming it's always one or the other and assuming there's not a third option, of course. There is growing support of this theory, and Temple Grandin touches on it in her book 'The Autistic Mind' (which I find refreshingly hard-sciencey in its approach. More emphasis on brain than on mind, so to speak). That said, a common criticism is that Intense World Theory perhaps explains a bit too much. And it's relatively new and basically the opposite of many of the previous theories. Despite this caveat, the reason why I strongly support the theory, even if it might ultimately be entirely or partly wrong, is that it fits much better with the self-reported experience of actual autists, both high-functioning and low-functioning (in the cases where they find a way to communicate). And actually listening to the experience of the person suffering from something strikes me as rather crucial when you start talking about causes. One reason why I dismissed the possibility that I might be autistic is that I simply did not identify with the descriptions. It was only after the diagnosis that I realized that the symptoms were ridiculously applicable to myself; it was just the underlying explanation that seemed like the opposite of my own experience. It baffles me that problems making eye-contact (the symptom) is still very often said to be because of an inability to understand it, or something like that (the purported cause), when most autistics I know or read about self-describe the cause as being 'overstimulated' and simply not being able to maintain eye contact because it's all 'just too much'. I can strongly recommend 'The Autistic Brain', by the way. It's very enlightening.
tdkl 11y ago
> reatricted, repetitive behavior patterns Those command our lives anyway, the only thing is if we train ourselves good or bad ones (and know the difference).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

alva 11y ago

Boredom is extremely important to me, although potentially there is something else at play. Some of the biggest life decisions I make come at the end of a spell of boredom. Either as a result of too long doing monotonous work, or purposely self-induced, perhaps in order to let my subconscious do all the work and let a solution float to the surface.

dhimes 11y ago

I can't stand those kinds of questionnaires where you have to choose between two extreme answers to an ill-posed question. (The thought of watching someone else's vacation pictures bores you-- agree/disagree: It depends on the person! duh!) For what it's worth, I got a 4/28.

cfcef 11y ago
Forced-choice is deliberate because it maximizes the information of the question. If you put in intermediate options, that can mask real differences by letting peoples' differing preferences for certainty influence whether their responses are informative or not. (People have information or preferences they don't even realize they have, like in some perceptual tasks, and you can't detect this without something like a forced-choice because if you give subjects any other options, they'll just say they don't know.)
- dhimes 11y ago
  Interesting. Forced-choice is ok if the question is completely clear. In many cases you have to assume information that makes the difference in which choice you pick, I find. Unless that in itself is what is being tested (do you implicitly supply optimistic or pessimistic information? for example). The problem with these questionnaires is that they get a lot of information from people who don't take it seriously so they don't learn anything either. In other words, it's my preference for clarity that is making my responses uninformative for the survey-giver.

stepvhen 11y ago

I haven't had a work task at my job for 6 months, sans a week of QA testing, and a few days in SQL. I come to work, and have to be left to my own devices, and I never connected my personal laptop to the internet there. I tried to study text books and work on projects, and that worked most of the time, but not all the time. Its absolutely exhausting finding something to do that looks like work, for at least 4 hours every day, for 6 months, with very limited options. That tendency for boredom has leaked into other parts of my life and I am actively trying to fight it, and that is difficult. I hope this research continues and turns up decent conclusions. For the record, I gave my two-weeks this past week. 6 months is long enough.

delluminatus 11y ago
I just want to say, well done on giving your notice. To someone who's never experienced it, it might seem like having no work would be great, but it's actually terrible for our sense of self-worth in my experience. A surprising number of people are too afraid to leave a position even if they feel it's soul-sucking. It takes serious guts to leave a steady job even if it sucks. Good luck finding a more exciting position!
jhallenworld 11y ago
Did you have a new job lined up or leap into the unknown? If you had a new job, was the pay higher, lower or same? I guess I'm asking if people are willing to take less pay for less boredom.
- stepvhen 11y ago
  Due to the family illness I mentioned in another comment, I have come into some money. I am actually going back to school, and don't have much desire to work. Maybe at a coffee shop, just so weekends don't lose their meaning.
dhd415 11y ago
I was once in a similar position at a startup in the early 00's that was trying to "pivot" to a service model that was more profitable. Like you, it was hard for me to keep my boredom and lack of work productivity from spilling over into other areas of my life. I was starting to worry that it was going to damage my work ethic and ability to focus. I eventually got laid off and found another job that was more fast-paced and challenging and was relieved to find that I was able to jump right back into it. I hope the same is true for you!

wfo 11y ago

I think any treatment of boredom, scientific or not, is woefully incomplete without reference to the man who understood it better than anyone, Soren Kierkegaard. He uses it as a vehicle for discussion and engages in it at a level I haven't seen since. This particularly funny and biting essay should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding it from a philosophical or psychological context: http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/145.%20THE%20ROTATION%20OF%20CROPS.pdf http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/145.%20THE%2...