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  • Hey, Vsauce. Michael here.

  • Action and

  • danger is exciting but this

  • is a fake gun and the process

  • of enlarging a hole, like the barrel of a gun, is called

  • boring. Boring. Boring a hole

  • is a slow process requiring repetitive movements from a tool that goes in

  • circles,

  • which may be why things that are slow and repetitive and don't appear to be going

  • anywhere

  • came to be described with the same word. They're boring. But why do we get

  • bored and why does it matter? Evidence of being

  • temporarily uninterested in anything happening - boredom -

  • has been found as far back as ancient Pompeii.

  • Boredom is a feeling we don't like. It's

  • uncomfortable but it's trivial, right? I mean, boredom happens to all of us but

  • now

  • we have Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and texting and Candy Crush

  • to keep ourselves occupied. So, really,

  • who cares? Well, here's the thing.

  • Physical pain, heartbreak and nausea are also

  • uncomfortable but they're caused by dangerous

  • serious toxic things, whereas boredom

  • occurs when you are merely disinterested in the outside world

  • and the inner world of your thoughts, when you are

  • alone with just yourself. So,

  • does the existence of boredom mean that when it really comes down to it life

  • itself existing isn't really enough?

  • Arthur Schopenhauer said that "if life possessed

  • in itself a positive value in real content,

  • there would be no such thing as boredom. Mere existence would fulfil

  • and satisfied us." But apparently it doesn't

  • because boredom exists. Is something wrong

  • with being, or is something

  • awesome about us? Nearly 200 hundred years ago Giacomo Leopardi wrote in a

  • letter to his father

  • "boredom is the most sublime of all human emotions because

  • it expresses the fact that the human spirit, in a certain sense,

  • is greater than the entire universe. Boredom

  • is an expression of a profound despair and not finding anything that can

  • satisfy the souls'

  • boundless needs." So, while superficially boredom might seem trivial or

  • childish, embarrassing, almost rude to admit to feeling,

  • one thing's for sure - boredom isn't

  • boring. When bored, your brain activity

  • only drops about 5% and magnetic resonance images of people's brains

  • while they were bored actually showed greater activity in regions responsible

  • for

  • recalling autobiographical memory, conceiving

  • the thoughts and feelings of others and conjuring hypothetical events -

  • imagining. Jennifer Schuessler wrote about this

  • in her appropriately titled essay "Our boredom,

  • Ourselves." She points out that in line with neurological

  • evidence, boredom historically has been "an important source

  • of creativity, well-being and our very sense self."

  • It's an imposed state that leaves us

  • to think about ourselves, notice things we may have overlooked and get "ancy" enough

  • to take productive

  • actions we might have otherwise put off, like

  • cleaning, writing or challenging the mind with puzzles

  • and games.

  • As a pressure to move, boredom

  • may have driven us to accomplish much of what we have achieved.

  • But how do you measure

  • boredom? The boredom proneness scale,

  • 'BPS', assess an individual's propensity for getting

  • bored, in a sense their ease of being attentive. Average

  • scores range between 81 and 117.

  • We can take scores on the BPS and correlate

  • them with other things. For instance, people who know themselves well

  • can easily label their feelings, have high levels of self-awareness,

  • tend to have a lower propensity score feeling bored.

  • But when it comes to feeling boredom frequently,

  • the culprit may be one's own physiology.

  • Individuals with fewer dopamine receptors in the brain

  • tend to need more excitement to stay stimulated,

  • meaning chronic boredom may be a symptom

  • of the way your body is. A symptom that if

  • left unchecked can become something worse

  • Anna Gosline lists depression,

  • anxiety, drug addiction, alcoholism, hostility,

  • poor social skills, bad grades and low work performance.

  • In fact, the National Center on drug abuse and addiction has reported that the

  • top three

  • risk factors for teenage substance abuse

  • are too much stress, too much spending money

  • and too much boredom. The Beth Israel Medical Center in New York

  • reports that addicts reported levels of boredom

  • are the only reliable indicator of whether or not they will stay clean.

  • Our brains need stimulation

  • in order to be healthy, not so much that they're overwhelmed but a perfect

  • balance

  • unique to each individual, under which they can perform

  • optimally, with energized focus, what psychologists call

  • flow. Too little stimulation and our brains will act out,

  • hoping to find some somewhere to prevent something worse

  • from happening. Our brains have thaasophobia,

  • the fear of boredom. Peter Toohey's "Boredom: A Lively History"

  • quotes Norman Doidge's findings that "nothing

  • speeds brain atrophy more being

  • immobilized in the same environment: the monotony

  • undermines our dopamine and attentional systems crucial for maintaining

  • brain plasticity." Variety

  • and stimulation encourage neurogenesis, new brain cells

  • and can extend the lives of cells that already exist in certain regions

  • of the brain. In order to avoid a lack of stimulation,

  • our brains will even try to make up their own stimulations -

  • hallucinations. Hallucinations can be induced

  • in almost anyone's brain, if there isn't enough stimulation

  • around. For instance, the ganzfeld effect.

  • When exposed to random noise and unchanging monochromatic field,

  • the brain freaks out and starts generating hallucinations.

  • The effect can also be induced with ping pong balls hemispheres

  • over the eyes and a radio tuned to static.

  • Extended sensory deprivation in a special chamber

  • that eliminates site, sound, smell, taste and tactile sensations

  • by floating the body in a special fluid to reduce the sensation of weight

  • can also cause hallucinations as well

  • as anxiety. When denied proper stimulation,

  • the brain goes through phases that begin with boredom

  • and if left unchecked can become worse.

  • It's a phenomenon well-documented in animals confined to cages

  • for long periods of time, and, in a horrific case,

  • a human child named Genie. Born

  • in 1957 in Arcadia, California,

  • Genie became one of the most famous cases of abnormal

  • child psychology. Her father was abusive to her and her family

  • and delusional. He hated the outside world and sought to isolate his family

  • from it

  • as best he could. He confined Genie

  • to a room with only two blacked-out windows for the first

  • thirteen years of her life. He often tied her to a toilet chair

  • and never fed her solid food. When authorities finally found her,

  • in 1970, she had not acquired a language

  • and had the mental age of an 18-month-old child.

  • Genie was extensively studied and became a staple

  • of psychology courses, a rare example of an impossible

  • experiment. What if a human child was

  • isolated from human contact, social behaviors

  • and human language. A feral child, not raised by the proverbial

  • wolves, but instead

  • right in the middle of suburbia. Genie

  • is still alive today, her identity anonymous,

  • as a ward of the state of California. Extended

  • under stimulation isn't just a punishment inflicted by delusional

  • caretakers,

  • it's also a punishment inflicted on criminals,

  • especially in the form a solitary confinement.

  • In the Bureau of Prisons, the record for most

  • time spent denied social contact is held

  • and still being set by Thomas Silverstein.

  • Considered extremely dangerous, Silverstein has been kept in solitude

  • since 1983. He has barely seen a single

  • other human for the last 29 years.

  • Stories like those are intense

  • and are far beyond everyday occasional boredom,

  • simple boredom. What you feel when waiting

  • at an airport or listening to an unengaging lecture

  • is not a disorder, it's not a moodm

  • it's an emotion. Robert Plutchik's wheel of emotions is a great way to

  • visualize this.

  • The wheel is based on 8 basic emotions extended

  • in order of intensity. Boredom is positioned as a

  • light version of disgust. Emotions

  • are not superfluous. Normal amounts of them have a purpose.

  • Creatures who feel emotions are often compelled to do

  • and not do more complicated things than merely

  • eating, drinking, sleeping and procreating, like

  • building friendships, apologizing, loving unconditionally and

  • planning and building for the future. Disgust

  • is an emotion we don't like. It keeps us from doing things. Its purpose

  • is most likely a warning, an alarm triggered by things that appear rancid,

  • spoiled or toxic, that could poison us or make us sick.