The Brain’s Five Kinds of Boredom

One of our writers writes for another blog called “Zombie For Life.”(We think that’s supposed to be an ironic title.) Today he wrote an entry called “5 Reasons People Who Listen to Surf Guitar Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse.” And since today’s post about the five kinds of boredom, we thought it would be fun to somehow link the two.

Research performed by a handful of scientists and reported on by Science Daily suggests that boredom can be classified according to levels of arousal and valence. They describe:

• indifferent boredom (relaxed, withdrawn, indifferent)
• calibrating boredom (uncertain, receptive to change/distraction)
• searching boredom (restless, active pursuit of change/distraction)
• reactant boredom (high reactant, motivated to leave a situation for specific alternatives)
• apathetic boredom, an especially unpleasant form that resembles learned helplessness or depression. It is associated with low arousal levels and high levels of aversion.

(The above is directly quoted from Science Daily but reformatted for this blog post.)

In an effort to provide some entertainment today, which is to say, alleviate some boredom, we’d like to suggest that each boredom type, above, can be a means by which to survive a zombie apocalypse:

• Indifferent: this person will maintain a cool head when everyone else is losing control.
• Calibrating: this person will not take for granted the doomed-to-fail survival instructions provided by civic leaders, and will adapt to ever-changing circumstances.
• Searching: this person will not stay idle as things fall apart, becoming a sitting duck for that random zombie who wanders by.
• Reactant: this person will respond immediately to a zombie threat, and will not become complacent or accept a seemingly unavoidable doom.
• Apathetic: this person will be as like the undead themselves, blend in, and in doing so will avoid being eaten as the zombies chase after livelier prey.

Yes, we’ve taken a few liberties here, and made some assumptions. But then again, zombies are fictional, so taking liberties and making assumptions is de rigueur for this kind of discussion. 

On a serious note, the fifth boredom type, “apathetic” is one that has only been recently recognized, and its inclusion in the above list reveals some troubling statistics: “Because of the assumed link between boredom and depression, the research group found it alarming that apathetic boredom was reported relatively frequently by 36 percent of the high school students sampled.”

Add to that their determination: “people do not just randomly experience the different boredom types over time… they tend to experience one type” and the 36 percent number is indeed alarming. 

We’re hopeful that such studies can help catch signs of depression early so that people can seek proper treatment.

 

We’re also hopeful that for everyone else, our blog post today alleviates some of their boredom.