Understanding and fixing boredom

Feeling bored? Learn how to use that discomfort to switch up a gear and regain control over your life and your interests

James Danckert is professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and a cognitive neuroscientist. He is the author, with John Eastwood , of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom (2020).

John Eastwood is associate professor in psychology at York University in Canada, and a clinical psychologist. He is the author, with James Danckert , of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom (2020).

If you think about boredom at all, you might consider it trivial – a part of the furniture of life, mostly an affliction of youth, and characterised by the quintessential couch potato. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a start, the couch potato is a better description of apathy than boredom. Apathy is the absence of any desire. Boredom, by contrast, involves desperately wanting to do something, yet nothing seems to fit the bill.