Kids get what it means to feel bored starting at a young age, and like all of us, they don’t like it. I recall a day near the end of summer vacation when my brother and I began to mope around and whine that there was nothing to do. Pretty soon, Mom cured us (of announcing our boredom, not our ennui) by marching us off to wash windows. That’s when we discovered you can have stuff to do and still feel bored.
This fact hit especially hard during the COVID-19 pandemic when public spaces closed and we got stuck indoors for long periods. Most of us had video streaming services, apps for our phones, and maybe a few dusty jigsaw puzzles in the closet, and yet we were still bored. News media began to report on this shared challenge, which is how I learned some stimulating things about boredom.
In early 2021, I happened to catch a radio segment about a boredom lab located at Toronto’s York University in Canada. It turns out there are other such labs, including well-established ones in Gainesville, Florida, College Station, Texas, and Waterloo, Ontario (not far from Toronto, oddly enough). All of them predate the pandemic, by the way.
As any student who’s ever doodled in class rather than taken notes can affirm, boredom isn’t a lack of things to do. It’s the unmet need for activity we can deeply relate to. Many of us are scheduled to the max, but if we’re not invested in those tasks, they can become a dull pantomime, and we’re simply going through the motions.
In fact, some of the things we do to assuage our boredom can actually make us even more bored. A recent finding that came out of York University’s lab is that if we rapidly switch from one digital platform to another in a quest for a distraction, our experience of boredom intensifies.
Boredom, while unpleasant, is a normal feeling, and can be a sign that we need to make a positive change in our lives, whether it’s an attitude, a routine, or even a career. Feeling bored can be viewed as an invitation to delve more deeply into what really matters to us. Dr. James Danckert, a researcher at the University of Waterloo’s boredom lab, agrees that ennui can help us, but only if we see it as a messenger, cautioning that by itself it won’t inspire us. Once we recognize what it’s telling us – that we’re not engaged with our present situation – it’s our job to find creative solutions.
But boredom is tricky. First, not everyone feels or responds to it in the same way. People with narcissistic personality traits or who struggle with self-control are more prone to boredom than average. These individuals are more likely to espouse extreme political views (of all stripes) and be drawn to conspiracies as coping tools. Another caveat is that we must feel a sense of agency for boredom to become an ally. For example, prisoners kept in solitary confinement for long stretches may suffer permanent neurological damage.
Given that we’re still unlocking how boredom affects us, it’s no surprise that even less is known about what ennui does to non-human animals. For hundreds of years, Western science was rather frantic in its efforts to distance us from other animal species, bristling at the suggestion that elephants, dogs, ravens, and whales might feel grief, joy, and other familiar emotions.
These sad attempts to reject “anthropomorphic projections” persisted into the mid-1900s. Much in the way that it took decades to convince doctors to wash their hands between patients, we were pitifully late to acknowledge that birds, reptiles, and mammals like to have fun, and that they do feel emotions such as grief, boredom, joy, and fear.
Boredom and depression are distinct yet related in all animals. When an environment lacks adequate stimulus, animals can get bored, but as long as their motivation stays high, they’ll usually find ways to create interest in their situation. Long-term enforced monotony, though, can push humans and other animals into depression. Without enough intellectual, social, and physical stimuli, captive animals often turn to stereotyped activities like self-harm and pacing.
Dr. Barbara J. King, professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, says in a 2017 article that many animals feel boredom. King holds that even the best-designed enclosures at zoos fall short of giving animals the variety of their native habitat. She says well-loved pets can also suffer from uniformity in their environment.
King points to the work of Dr. Charlotte C. Burn, a biologist at The Royal Veterinary College in the UK. According to Burn, any animal can get bored if it has nothing to do that is relevant to its species. For example, grazing animals like cows that evolved to selectively pick through grasses all day have little to do when they’re fed a high-energy grain mix and kept in a barn.
Human and non-human boredom came face-to face during COVID-19, as lots of people adopted so-called pandemic pets to keep them company. Now that home-based work has largely returned to the office, leaving many pets alone all day, with less to keep them occupied.
Common signs that your pet may be bored include destructive behaviors like chewing or clawing your stuff, as well as changes in appetite, excessive sleeping, relieving themselves indoors, and vocalizing more than usual. Variety is the spice of life, and also a cure for pet boredom. Among other remedies, mentally stimulating toys, foods of varied textures and shapes, and food puzzles (or safaris) that require pets to search for hidden food, can help.
Due to recent surgery, I can’t drive again until late February, 2026, and my physical activity is quite restricted. Turns out I’m pretty good at just hanging out all day. Maybe I could apply for a job at one of those boredom labs.
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Comments
My dog Chester is an outdoor dog and he never stays bored. He’s a happy puppy. He’s well fed. He runs after rabbits. He kills armadillos. I think he’s up to fifteen now in that count. He barks at deer. He not afraid of coyotes and lets me know when I need to pop one. He respects the bobcats. He goes his way and they go theirs. He controls stray cat populations. For some odd reason he’s afraid of rats, but that’s another story. So, no he is not bored. He stays outside and likes the outdoors. It’s a huge benefit to rural living. You city and urban dwellers might do well to give it a try for your and your dog’s sake.
What a fascinating feature on boredom. I’m not surprised Western scientists didn’t admit or acknowledge non-humans are also subject to boredom and depression, as if humans being “higher up” on the living creature scale had anything to do with feelings. Happy, sad, bored, looking for adventure, or what plants/leaves at their disposal to consume for a natural high.
Research seems to be peeling back the onion layers pretty well nowadays. I’m glad your surgery went well, and you’ll be able to drive again within two months.