Was Harvey Danger right when the band sang “If you’re bored, then you’re boring”?
What’s your go-to fidgeting method when you’re bored?
38% say they don’t fidget, as they’re perfectly comfortable to just sit and stare. Another 27% rearrange things arbitrarily, and 27% doodle. 8% bite their fingernails.
Is boredom a good thing or a bad thing?
42% Say it’s neither good nor bad, and 24% say it’s both good and bad. 15% consider boredom entirely a bad thing, and 12% are ambivalent. Only 9% think boredom is good. Read our feature (in the October issue of Mindful) for a deeper look at boredom.
What form of entertainment do you find most boring?
Well, there aren’t many gamers around here! At 46%, video games are considered by far the most boring form of entertainment among Mindful readers. That’s significantly more than the next most boring form of entertainment, TV (26%), followed by board games (12%), movies (3%), magazines (2%), and books (2%). Another 12% had their own answers to the question. Here are a few of our favorites:
- NASCAR
- Opera
- Politics
- Golf on TV
- Watching grass grow (Note: Is this really a “form of entertainment”?)
- Neurophysics lectures
How long does it take you to nod off if you’re bored?
49% never nod off from boredom, while it takes 25% just a few minutes to conk out. 22% can hold off for an hour or two before succumbing to bored sleep, and 4% fall asleep right away.
On a scale from 1 to 10, how easily do you get bored?
What do you think of doodling?
65% say it’s a creative release, while 21% consider doodling a way to relieve tension, and 14% believe it’s something people do for no reason.
How would you describe your experience of boredom?
- “So crushing I want to chew my arm off.”
- “A lost opportunity to be creative but this can be productive when you re- arrange your priorities!”
- “Since I am the most interesting and fun person I know, I am not sure that I have experienced boredom.”
- “Kind of itchy.”
- “One big yawn.”
- “………….”
- “Resistance to nondoing.”
- “Blah!”
- “Extra energy in my body/limbs but numbness in my brain.”
The best thing to do when you’re bored is:
- “Daydream or find something you enjoy to do.”
- “Go for a walk.”
- “I enjoy puzzles such as sudoku or crosswords.”
- “Chill.”
- “Contact a friend.”
- “Slerp.” (Note: We’re not sure what this means, but it sounds kind of nice.)
- “Read and sip on wine.”
- “Think about something you haven’t had time to think about.”
- “Sit with it and let it drift away.”
- “Write in a journal. There’s always something for you to process.”
- “Still don’t know. Thinking about it is boring.”
- “Stay off the damn smartphone.”
What’s one hobby you can’t believe you do because it seems so terribly boring?
- Read nonfiction
- Meditate
- Watch documentaries
- Organize stuff
- Listen to my husband go on about his computer issues and how they were solved
- Data entry
- Rearrange the silverware drawer
- Dusting
- Pull weeds
- Watch my chickens
