Boredom can be a tool to help us think more deeply about what matters most. Silence can be the context for exercising the mind and cultivating the imagination in a way that Scripture invites. If Brooks is right, cultivating boredom is a habit we all need, especially in a culture like ours.

According to Arthur Brooks, “You need to be bored.” In a short, straight-forward YouTube mini-talk, the Harvard professor and best-selling author insisted that, far from being something to overcome, boredom is necessary for human flourishing. It is, in fact, a practice to cultivate, and the commitment to avoid boredom at all costs is behind many of our worst habits, problems, and anxieties. 

To say that this kind of thinking runs against societal norms is quite the understatement. According to a Harvard study from 2014, many people prefer even pain to boredom. Placed in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes but push a button that would deliver an electric shock, “(a) big majority of the participants gave themselves shocks instead of thinking about nothing.” 

In the video, Brooks first described how boredom works on our minds: 

Boredom is a tendency for us to not be occupied otherwise cognitively, which switches over our thinking system to use a part of our brain that’s called the default mode network. That sounds fancy. It’s really not. 

The default mode network is a bunch of structures in your brain that switch on when you don’t have anything else to think about. So, you forgot your phone and you’re sitting at a light, for example. That’s when your default mode network goes on. 

In other words, boredom cannot be explained by the desire we have, especially in modern western culture, to just be entertained. After all, movies, music, playsand games are often welcome respites for the weariness of work and stress. Instead, Brooks argues, it is essential to seek times of stillness, quiet, and boredom for a much more profound reason. 

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