Boredom as Input
topic
Boredom — the state of being under-stimulated by the current environment — is paradoxically one of the most productive creative inputs available, with the research on boredom and creativity consistently showing that boredom activates the default mode network, increases mind-wandering and daydreaming (the mental contexts most associated with creative insight), and motivates the creative generation that engagement with external stimulation suppresses.
Role
Boredom is the most systematically avoided and the most creatively productive cognitive state in the digital era — with the smartphone having effectively eliminated boredom as a regularly occurring human experience by providing instant stimulation in every moment of potential idleness, simultaneously eliminating the specific cognitive conditions from which creative insight most consistently emerges. The creator who deliberately protects periods of genuine boredom — by leaving the phone at home on walks, sitting without digital stimulation on public transit — is protecting the specific creative input that the attention economy has been most successful in eliminating.