Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. 💞

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

Beloved by 86.47% of the web.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

posted by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link

You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why.

Here’s a short video by Arthur Brooks (that you are probably watching on your phone) about why you should log off, put your phone down, and let yourself be bored.

You need to be bored. You will have less meaning and you will be more depressed if you never are bored. I mean, it couldn’t be clearer.

See also In Praise of Boredom, In Defense of Boredom, and “Boredom: the great engine of creativity”.

Fave · 7

Comments  3

Sort by: thread — thread . latest . faves

K
Kate M

Also Jenny Odell's excellent How to Do Nothing.

Fave · 3 Share
Mau S

I like to think of Niksen:

"nothinging", is a Dutch verb which means "doing nothing", which can be roughly translated as "to nothing". It has been explored as a method to combat work-related health problems such as stress and burnout.

Fave · 2 Share
Mau S

I am almost 100% sure niksen has been discussed here, but couldn't find references to it.

Fave · 0 Share

This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!