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Despite Having Unprecedented Access To Technology, Generation Z Is Already Bored (thedailybeast.com)
Taylor Lorenz, writing for The Daily Beast: There is a notion among older people that teens, with their smartphones and unlimited internet access, never experience boredom. CNN and other media outlets have repeatedly declared that smartphones have killed boredom as we know it. But today's teens are still bored, often incredibly so. They're just more likely to experience a new type of boredom: phone bored.
As members of what has been dubbed "Generation Z," a cohort that spans those born roughly between the years 1998 and 2010, today's teens and tweens have had unparalleled access to technology. Many have had smartphones since elementary, if not middle school. They've grown up with high-speed internet, laptops, and social media.
It's tempting to think that these devices, with their endless ability to stimulate, offer salvation from the type of mind-numbing boredom that is so core to the teen experience. But humans adapt to the conditions that surround them, and technical advances are no different. What seemed novel to one generation feels passe to the next. To many teens, smartphones and the internet have already lost their appeal.
As members of what has been dubbed "Generation Z," a cohort that spans those born roughly between the years 1998 and 2010, today's teens and tweens have had unparalleled access to technology. Many have had smartphones since elementary, if not middle school. They've grown up with high-speed internet, laptops, and social media.
It's tempting to think that these devices, with their endless ability to stimulate, offer salvation from the type of mind-numbing boredom that is so core to the teen experience. But humans adapt to the conditions that surround them, and technical advances are no different. What seemed novel to one generation feels passe to the next. To many teens, smartphones and the internet have already lost their appeal.
Damn kids, get back on my lawn so I can kick you off
Mobile games are shit. Why would I ever be subject to a timer and spend years getting anywhere in a game? Unless you're a millionaire, modern mobile games are very often unnecessarily protracted grinds.
"since elementary, if not middle school" isn't the typical English idiom supposed to be "X, if not Y" supposed to have Y as the more "extreme" case?
"good, if not great", "injured, if not dead", etc?
Infinite options, infinite "boredom."
I got into computing in the early 80s - the first home computing boom. They were new and fresh and exciting - I learned what I could about them, read obsessively in magazines about every home micro available, learned to code (badly in BASIC...) - it was all new.
Now? Computers and smartphones are appliances - they're not fun, they're not novel - they're meant to just sit there doing their job. And this is natural, it's not current generation's 'fault' that they're not excited by this tech. I wasn't excited by the fact I didn't need to double declutch to learn to drive, it was just how things were and are.
I'd be interested to know what is considered fresh and exciting in the same way. Seems that the use of these platforms is big, and the creation of things with them. But interest in the tech itself is less common, and I'm not surprised by this at all.
Greatest Generation had Radio
Baby boomers had TV to entertain themselves as teenagers.
Gen X had Video Games.
Millennials had the internet
Gen Z has cell phones.
Entertainment of any type gets boring. Because we are craving stimulation often from actually working on something, that pushes us further and expands us more. But many institutions such as jobs and school, have rules and regulation that often don't put people on the pace that they need to be at. Either too slow and gets board, or too fast which they get frustrated.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Well, ya. Of course they're going to be bored if they've experienced one of the greatest advancements in mankind's history from pre-school onward. It's "normal" to them. Worse yet, it's not like they stumbled upon the internet or smart devices on their own. These parents shove these things into their kids' hands just like the previous generation was done with console video games and the generation before that was sat down in front of televisions.
What do you expect to happen? Better yet, let's get critical: What would you have preferred happen?
Worked then. Probably works now. Even available on-line.
Too 'smart' to play mindless mobile games or scroll through social media all day, yet too dumb to do something useful with thier smartphones. There are countless tutorials. Learn a music instrument, lern how to paint, learn a new language or whatever you like. The access to that kind of information is easier than ever.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Once, not so long ago, children amused thems lives with simple things. A rock on a string. A stick and a wheel. A spherical rubber object. Random bits of scrap from the landfill. Imagination did the rest. Now they can be surrounded by technology and be bored. Just like my friends and I could sit in a NYC flat and complain there is nothing to do. Even though the room was awash in light from Manhattan. It takes effort to stay engaged no matter the level of technology at ones disposal
Boredom is a sign that one isn't being challenged enough. Anxiety is when one is being challenged too much - they took on too much at one time. (Csikszentmihalyi)
Give the kids a challenge and they'll pay attention.
There is a whole planet to explore.
Put down the phone and look at the actual planet they are on.
If THAT bores you look up at night at the Universe.
In an absolute sense, the technological advances over my lifetime are utterly stunning to me.
In a relative sense, it all has far too rapidly become the new normal.
Sadly, I'm not sure we're wired for it to be much different.
https://xkcd.com/1348/
I have an 18 year old brother. Looking at him and his friends connected all the time, it's not that they're never bored, but instead what I see is a different kind of boredom, that's borderline anxious. They are bored, but constantly agitated to find a new, exciting thing to connect. People older than me, like my grandfather, display a more peaceful kind of boredom. It might be just an age thing, guess I'll discover this in a few years.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
This is why AI is such a big thing, besides technology not really being there yet. People are reaching for 'we should be able to do this' but there is no self-driving yet. The step in technology required for it is too big and will skip the generation that wants it so badly. Me, I'm happy with the technological improvements in my time. I can watch a movie on a computer now. That's what I wanted as a kid on early computers.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Humans are problem-solving animals. Tech can be pretty and use lots and lots of transistors but if it has nothing to offer by way of personal growth they people be bored with it.
You can increase the resolution on a video game -- all the way from the original breadboarded Pong to the latest real-time 4K-3D gorefest and VR and yes you will get attention and often addiction. But at the end of the day the competition and the puzzles to solve ("find the key to the door", "learn this riddle") is the same or banal routine and you get bored with that even though the stunning graphics and sound give you an endorphin squirt.
Addiction and Boredom at the same time. Remember that can happen and is what is happening. Some kids today spend countless hours with their video games and at the risk of sounding like an Old Fart (tm) it just isn't healthy. It is obvious why their personalities end up so flaccid. Fortunately I think that is a minority of kids and I still see lots of them doing better things.
Chess, Go, Poker, and any competition sport will be around longer than any edition of Call Of Duty.
Boredom is a gift. It forces you to find the things that satisfy your soul.
It comes for teens, no matter who they are or where they are. There is no technological fix, and there should be none. In fact, enforced boredom might be better for long-term outcomes than instant gratification entertainment ever could be.
Lots of these kids live in suburbs out in the middle of nowhere so their parents could afford a decent house. There's nothing for miles and no public transportation. Often no bike path either. I guess they could go for a leisurely stroll.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There is a notion among older people that teens, with their smartphones and unlimited internet access, never experience boredom.
Wha? Who, exactly, thought that?
Childless "older people", I guess?
they can't help it; it's genetic. Thankfully, most of them get over it eventually.
>There is a notion among older people that teens, with their smartphones and unlimited internet access, never experience boredom.
A totally fabricated notion I'm sure
>CNN and other media outlets have repeatedly declared that smartphones have killed boredom as we know it.
Ah... that explains it. Fabricated by childless older people.
If you're bored go mow the fucking lawn.
"I used to say flatly to the kids in my class, 'If I ever hear you use the words I'M BORED, you get that once chance, after that, I don't want to hear from you for the rest of the year. Only disgusting people say they're bored. I don't have an obligation to entertain you, neither does anyone else. If you say you're bored, it means you're boring. It means you have a limited mind, and you better do something about that, because no one wants to hang around with boring people, of which, you are the primary case!"
John Taylor Gatto, New York City and State School Teacher of the Year, Author of "The Underground History of American Education"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Finally a generation that truly understands what digital technology is!
With even the slowest modern computer and the internet you can do massive numbers of things. Programming, desktop publishing, video editing and creating are all at your fingertips. Plus thousands of free games (some legal some not so). Then there's the increased access to information. Programming roadblocks I ran into as a kid can be overcome with a quick post to stack overflow.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The fucks do not know how to entertain themselves nor have they developed the mechanical skills the generations before had.
I remember when I was growing up, if I said I was bored my mom would always respond with, "if you're bored I can give you something to do." Of course being bored doesn't mean I have nothing to do. If that were true I could always find something to do, even if it just meant counting from one to a million. No, boredom comes from not having anything to do which I find interesting or stimulating. What I've learned is that I find far more satisfaction (and less boredom) by building or creating things. While it's easy to download a game on my phone or computer, I find it more stimulating to build my own. This is true even if the game is something simple like tic-tac-toe. Figuring out how to display the game, handle inputs, detect if someone wins, and build a decent AI is something I find interesting. Had I downloaded a tic-tac-toe game I would be bored with it, even though it would surely be more polished than my version. Not everyone likes programming, though, but there are a lot of areas that involve creativity: woodworking, sewing, painting, writing, cooking, landscaping, etc. It's just a matter of finding what you like.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Apps are a fad. I only install apps that are necessary, signal, Firefox, etc. If the app has "in app purchases" I don't even bother. Yep, sorry I'd much rather pay cash than be bothered with shit in an app. Sorry, not doing it!
Maybe they should put down the phones and go outside. Yeesh, I spent my summers playing basketball with my friends. Maybe if they put down the phone and actually physically interact with people, they won't be bored. It's a huge world, more than FB, Instagram and snap. It's no different than when I was a kid and I got sick and watched TV all day.
In the suburbs, I, I learned to drive
And you told me we'd never survive
Grab your mother's keys, we're leaving
You always seemed so sure
That one day we'd be fighting in a suburban war
Your part of town against mine
I saw you standing on the opposite shore
But by the time the first bombs fell
We were already bored
We were already, already bored
Sure a phone has all kinds of bells and whistles but honestly it's boring. Back in the day my TRS-80 coco2 had me engaged more than my phone ever did even with all the apps out today for phones. Building games instead of playing them and seeing what I could change and do was all a part of the fun. It was also a hell of a lot easier to do back then compared to today's development where you need SDKs, frameworks, etc just to get a window to pop up on a screen. Basic days?
10 SCREEN 1
20 A=20
30 DRAW "U=A; R=A; D=A; L=A;"
Boom, graphic box on the screen and from there your imagination took off. You spent more time creating then poking around with frameworks, build files, whatever.
"It's tempting to think that these devices, with their endless ability to stimulate, offer salvation from the type of mind-numbing boredom that is so core to the teen experience."
The core teen experience is mind-numbing boredom? Are you sure? Having a nearly infinite range of possibilities and potential may result in some form of analysis paralysis - IF you're the sort of person that needs to obsessively analyze and think through all the ramifications - but we're talking about teens. Not exactly the folks who are keen on analysis and thinking things through. There's a world of things you've never done, and so many of them are so immediately accessible!
Have you actually experienced life outside of school? Having to work for a living? Do you understand where the movie 'Fight Club' is coming from?
Lemme ask you this, when's the last time you got REALLY excited for your birthday? For getting to drive a car? For hanging out after ? For dating? For getting a paycheck (vs. relief that you can pay the bills != excitement). Exploring a new genre of music or band or even just a new release? Hell, just for making a purchase you had to save up for?
There's nothing out there that compares with the experience of all those firsts, at a time in life when you're first able to exert your own agency.
The fact that entertainment is now hand-held, personalized, varied, ubiquitous, introduced early in life and increasingly psychologically designed to promote addictive behavior does mean that we're training people to have short attention spans with a need for ever-more-attention-getting, ever-more-intrusive, ever-changing sources of entertainment. But that STILL doesn't mean the core teen experience is to be bored. It just means that they're losing interest with each specific thing more quickly, and even that's not a definitive characteristic of teen life.
I have introduced my 12yro to RC cars, plastic models, Rocketry, and tabletop games. He still has his video games but these hobbies will get him outside. He has been crazy for models since a trip to the WWII Museum.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I'm an older millennial with apparently post-Gen Z kids. If I gave my older son a choice between my iPhone and a GameBoy (especially a GBA) I know that once he got the handle of the controls he'd have a lot more fun with the GameBoy than the phone. Fact is, the systems we grew up with were simply more fun and less frustrating for entertainment than a smartphone. Anyone who tries to do more than basic apps on a phone learns pretty quickly that they're just garbage for any sort of gaming experience that really pulls you in at that age range.
I'll also point out too that to the extent that I've noticed "kids shows" these days, they're also PC bullshit compared to what we grew up with. A lot of them have a preachy under current. I can't imagine shows like Macross/Robotech, Exo Squad, GI Joe, etc. being put out for boys today because ermagerd, toxic masculinity or something.
Sure, most of them are bored because they've been fed media and entertainment non-stop their whole lives. After a while, either you need even more of it, or you become numb to it and lose interest.
The smart ones learn things and then start doing things on their own. You can start doing CAD, computer programming, microcontrollers, robotics, computer-assisted manufacturing such as 3D printers, CNC routers and laser cutters, etc.
When you start designing and making your own projects, the next blockbuster movies or the new trendy TV shows become a lot less important in your life and they go back their normal "entertainment" status.
#DeleteFacebook
Can't hold a conversation about fuckall. Playing with their phone.
Video games, TV, movies are vapid forms of entertainment and completely unfulfilling. Kids should be playing outside with their friends, biking, skateboarding, playing sports, not stuck up inside all day, all this leads to is being discontent and fulfillment.
You mean: Due to...
Nothing like a draft and dying in foreign lands for foreign money to cure the kid's boredom!
I spent some time at a university campus two years ago and can confirm people under 25 seemed to be regularly bored and unengaged. They tended to sit around in small groups, looking at their phones rather than each other, often not talking or acknowledging other people at their table.
I'd often hear them complain about being bored. They rarely seemed to have hobbies, or interest in said hobbies. They mostly seemed to just want to scroll through social media feeds and sit idly.
I found it weird. There were so many interesting things on campus - green houses, art, books, video games, movies, various sporting clubs. So much stuff was offered and few of them took advantage of it. To me it seemed like they were going out of their ways to be bored and not engaged and then complain about it. I wasn't much older than they were, but I always had lots of fun stuff to do or look at or experience.
Boredom is not a natural 'state of being' for teens as the summary seems to imply. If teens are bored their parents aren't engaging them enough, so really just another case of 'latch-key kids' but the kids are now just left to their own devices (pun intended)...get them engaged in any kind of physical/intellectual/artistic activity. If parents think just giving their kids some technology is going to help them grow & stay engaged they are SERIOUSLY bad parents.
Any person who relies on external stimulation to cure boredom is doomed to be bored. (Possibly not including books.) The cure for boredom is an active and creative mind. Anything that facilitates creativity and allows it to thrive will help. Anything that boxes creativity in will perpetuate boredom. Technology can do both, whether its phones or the web or games with specific goals, but there seems to be more money in the latter. And, ultimately, boredom is passive and creativity is active. A person needs to pursue stimulation to fight boredom.
I've always found that only boring people get bored. Sadly for them.
Due to Unprecedented Access To Technology, Generation Z Is Already Bored
FTFT
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Whether you can motivate and excite yourself has very little to do with the availability of tools.
It depends on your mind. There are people out there building primitive shacks in the woods with stone axes.
Nothing is interesting in and of itself. It becomes interesting if our minds take interest, simple as that. If novelty is the only hook your mind is capable of, then you're plain fucked...
The internet used to be for creators and those seeking intellectual stimulation. Lots of small groups to discover and be part of. Millions of little amazing corners on the internet. All sorts of things you can learn and teach yourself and build things with, too.
However, GEN Z has grown up with a different internet. They’ve grown up with an internet that is little more than the Apple App Store, Facebook, Twitter, and reddit. It’s boring, because the internet used to foster creators and communities and exploration, but now it only fosters consumption. Recieiving entertainment. It’s just another delivery device for television style content and when you’re use young, you aspire to BE a creator... not just consume what others have created. But the internet isn’t about that anymore.
I have access to all that technology too, and it doesn't keep me from getting bored. I don't see why it would be any better if you were a teenager.
Handheld PCs are less stimulating than larger ones. No phone has a full of a field of view as even a small, shitty monitor, so you've got a huge bias against being able to immerse as deeply. (Whether it's a game or something you're working on, or whatever.) And even the very best touchscreen typist is slow and experiences excruciating error-prone agony compared to what an average person can do on a shitty keyboard.
The upshot is that there is a lot of interactivity that simply can't as easily happen, as what everyone took for granted 20 years ago. Yes, there are some upsides to little touchscreens too -- they're not bad things; the convenience of portability is undeniable. But they do lack the ability to be as stimulating.
Beyond the usual teen-age games such as CoD, Assassins Creed, etc.
For all it's faults - Scouting (both Boy & Girl) (among other outdoor programs) is a big help in this regards...I would include responsible hunting & fishing in this.
Along with:
Performing arts (music, choir, dance, acting, directing, stagecraft)
Physical hobbies & arts (my son is into blacksmithing - yes, pounding a piece of hot metal with a hammer) photography (go old-school w/ film and chemicals),
Mental hobbies (electronics, robotics, mechanical things).
Sports (Calvin Ball anyone?)
crap.. give them a pile of Legos and say 'build something' - the first question back will be 'what' - and the reply is... take two and put them together... then add to that.
In short, screen time (games, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, /., etc.) are all OK, but you need more than that to be stimulated and to have a life.
No, go mow my lawn - here's $20 for your efforts.
Fred In IT
Boring! Now, what's next. You know, like, whatever.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Both of my children and most of their peers went through the "so bored" phase. It was sometime after the "everything is funny" phase and lasted until they went off to college. It's called early adolescent boredom. Parents of Generation Z just need to realize that this is nothing new.
Am I somehow supposed to feel sorry for the existential malaise of a bunch of teenagers who have grown up coddled, constantly on-line, and have lost the skill of play and interpersonal interactions?
Bummer that you grew up stunted with the endless internet that you spent on cat videos and social media with your face endlessly buried in a phone.
Sorry that your parents allowed your generation to miss out on reality, and that you're now discovering that a cell phone isn't going to really be that fulfilling for you.
It's tragic your parents turned to a phone to keep you quiet because you'd lost all ability to amuse yourself and became a screeching brat if you didn't have a digital device to soothe you.
It's appalling you don't understand that human interaction is far richer and nuanced than a fucking emoji and Facebook (or whatever the fuck it is these days).
Oh woe is you.
Congratulations, you've learned what us old people learned 20 years ago ... the internet is a useful tool, but being on it constantly is draining and shallow.
This is pathetic, it's like at least the last two generations have grown up coddled, insulated, tethered to technology ... and utterly lacking in the kinds of physical and emotional development they need.
I'm tired of generations of whiny little cunts who think the world needs to adapt to their specialness. Guess what? You're not special, and we don't give a fuck.
Get outside ... ride a bike ... talk to one another face to face ... learn to see the world without requiring a screen to show it to you ... develop an attention span longer than a puppy ... learn to have periods of time where you're not at peak stimulation all the time ... learn not to jump excitedly at every 'ding' in some grotesque Pavlovian response ... and stop fucking whining about it.
Sorry, but as someone who is generation X ... I'm utterly fucking tired of hearing about these generations of drooling idiots who think they're special. We're not changing the world because you insist everything be done on social media. Don't interpret your own lack of an attention span and maturity as a failing of the world around you.
Get off my fucking lawn, and stop fucking expecting our sympathy and demanding our praise, because you deserve neither.
It's very easy to quickly consume media, especially from the web - news, games, pics, texts, tweets, videos, etc... - but those sources often don't get refreshed as quickly. For example, I have a *bunch* of free time and I can easily read through all the various news sources without them posting anything new for a while.
I'm guessing that youngsters aren't used to having to constantly create their own entertainment, like "back in the day". When I was a teenager, there was NO: Internet, cell-phones, TiVo/DVRs, not many VCRs, and cable TV had just started becoming a thing (with few channels) -- before that it was just ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Just like you cannot always be "happy", you cannot always be entertained. Real life has sadness and boredom.
I have a twenty-something daughter who spends every free moment in her room with Instagram and Youtube. I am very much looking forward to the day when her smartphone loses its appeal and she eventually looks up and realizes that there is a "real reality" beyond her window.
As an aside, I think the real reason kids are bored is that the great majority of all this phone and internet connectivity is designed to be passively experienced. People have become, by and large, content consumers with no real desire to have experiences of their own. Maybe it shows my age, but that seems really boring to me.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There, FIFY.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
DR
(What the fuck is a lameness filter and why should I care?)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Technology was and is just so widely adopted that it's become integrated as part of day to day living. I first got "home internet" around 1995; and at the time, our family was one of the only families of my circle of friends that had a home computer, let alone one with the internet.
But it's not just the computers, the internet or the ease of access to it. For me the internet itself has become unappealing; it's a lot like changing channels. The landscape feels like it's getting smaller and more commercially controlled.
You want to find something, you use google. And google will likely prioritize what it thinks you want to see, which is probably going to not only take history and generalizations like, what other people my age or in my area like, but actually my location into consideration.
If I want to interact with other people, I tend to do that now in one of only a few places, and with my own identity.
It's just become about as interesting as the television, I guess if all you really like is highly produced things being thrown at you in between commercials, then sure. But for me, I miss the days when nobody had facebook, everybody had a hacked up page on geocities. Youd chat with other people you didn't know on thrown together web chat pages, or you talk to people you did on irc networks. When you wanted to communicate meaningfully with somebody else, you had email. All of this is moot, because it kind of describes some of what I liked about what the internet was. It was new, it was thrown together, or I should say when you found something relatively well put together, it was something.
I'd be bored as a teen in this world too; but learning to use the technology in any meaningful way when I was a teen was half the fun.
We're working on robot lovers as fast as we can!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
At least for the last half century or longer. I spend a lot of time at the public library as a teen, and boredom was not of the things I had any issue with. All these electronic gadgets cannot fix boredom, because boredom is a personality problem, not a result of lack of possible entertainment. Of course, all these grand "Buy this and never be bored again!" are just the usual marketing lies and they are far older than personal electronics.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Legal weed. Problem solved.
I'm serious, it's literally creating brains that are underdeveloped and it will retard their mental abilities. The actual literally meaning of the label. It need not be permanent or have equal levels of damage to do a society great harm.
Creativity is severely lacking in people who never have to stimulate their own mind (imagine. No, consuming media that spells everything out does not count. It's akin to using training wheels and thinking you are good at riding a bike. ) Their attention spans, patience, and "normal" delaying of gratification (which is already lower in their parents) are also being harmed. Think of the Standford marshmallow experiment then think of freemium apps... It should be at least viewed as neglect to give a young child smart devices... Give them building blocks and dolls in their holodeck but phase in the devices as they develop and learn to properly incorporate them into their lives.
The ramifications of all of this are never going to be clear cut hard science but even if it reaches tobacco levels, the senseless defenders of the new status quo on this topic are vast and more powerful than big tobacco.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Why you always gotta be such a god-damned downer?
The alternative is that teens are forever sucked into their devices like semi-lobotomized digital zombies. Oh look, they're bored of that. HURRZAH! We get some good news and you old crotchety bastards just have to find some way to complain about it.
Living in the current worldwide sociopolitical climate, which by the way they're all born and raised in, what did you think was going to happen? We've got a loud-mouthed con-man 'running' the country, who is appointing a bunch of criminals, incompetents, and agenda-driven types, all of which are mucking up the works and causing untold amounts of damage, we've got an uprising of similar loud-mouthed destructive con-men in other countries, North Korea threatening to start tossing nukes around, China trying to build an empire, Russia creating chaos everywhere they can, Putin clearly wanting to create USSR v2.0, terrorist organizations running around blowing things up, cutting off people's heads on video on the Internet, and convincing their friends that they should forsake their Western lives and join them, for fuck's sake, and meanwhile we're slowly but surely destroying the ecosphere of the only planet we have to live on. So of course you've got 'bored' teenagers, they think it's all just a matter of time before it all falls apart into some real-life version of a post-apocalyptic movie or other, and by the way why else do you think so many people are addicted to opiods and painkillers? They're trying to escape any way they can because their reality sucks ass and they feel trapped and powerless. Everything everyone does is watched, listened to, logged, analyzed, and monetized, like we're all animals on a farm or convicts in a prison -- or, perhaps more to the point, like inmates in an insane asylum. We don't need movies or TV shows about dystopian futures, because we're clearly living in a dystopia. Want Gen-Z to be 'less bored'? How about we start injecting some sanity into the world!
Hey man, the job market is tough for the younger crowd. Some side income can be really helpful. ....Are you SURE her interaction online is "passive"?
People have become, by and large, content consumers
As opposed to people watching football? How man man-hours have you spent in your life watching TV?
'“Today, we don’t have time to daydream...."'
This makes it sound like daydreaming's a bad thing.
The implication is that if you're daydreaming then you must be bored.
Hah! No, if your daydreaming then you're using your brain -- it's a healthy use of time, as long as it's kept in balance with other things (and the contents of the daydream are decent).
That's definitely an ill of social networking -- it redefines the popular definition of "boredom."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How does the universe entitle you to continuous entertainment, health insurance, free condoms, and GoT?
Get out there and live your life!
Back in the 80ies there was so much that still had to be done. The state of IT was just leaving the steam-age and we got all excited when the C64 came out and we could instantly push the envelope even further. We dreamt of devices resembling todays tablets and VR goggles, didn't we? Remember the "consoles" in Enders Game? We have those now. And better than OSC imagined. And Star Trek NG and their devices look friggin' *dated*! Amazing isn't it?
These days there's nothing to explore in the IT space (except for some MMO or something ... if it isn't riddled with repetition and loot-boxes) because we all have dirt cheap high end devices and IT shortcomings & long since carried band-aids are quickly being replaced by the ideal solutions with no more need for optimisation what-so-ever. Even my job only exists because modern web is still based on pretty flaky software and tech from 15 years ago and there is always something to fix and replace. But that will be gone in 5 years.
However, outside of the nerd camp, things can be exciting, if you care to look - albeit only moderately so. I was climbing back then (freeclimbing was *the* avantgarde sport of the eighties) and I imagine even today there are still things to do outdoors, even though those have been perfected to the utmost degree. Wanna go climbing? There's a perfect climging hall for you right near by (we dreamed of this back then). Wanna go surfing? What type? Paddle? Longboard? Minisims? Wind? Kite? We have you covered. Wanna scate? Quads, Inline, Freestyle, Vert, Longboard Downhill, and so on. Same with most other adventures. Just about Aall is staked out and even Boyscouts is probably little more than therapy these days (dunno but I suspect).
It's not impossible not to be bored, but I do get that it's harder for current youngsters. This is post-scarcity economy for you and it rubs of onto youth, no surprise.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Just ask Elon Musk and one of his most recent ventures.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
If someone had told me in the 80s that we'd be using our pocket supercomputers to play Angry Birds and watch cat videos, I might have become a plant physiologist or dropped out of college and gone off to Japan to study shibori.
I'm an iOS programmer now, creating apps that run solely on the phone and don't serve ads. Phones are plenty powerful to do complex computing chores, but very few developers use the phones as more than a delivery device. When recruiters call me about a potential job, it's almost always a thin app with a hefty cloud backend so the company, not the user, controls the experience and the data.
Smart phones have dumbed-down tech. Once you get under the flash, there's not much there. Some apps that do useful things, and a lot of apps that are designed to keep the user engaged and online so that the data collectors can track their movements and serve them lots of ads.
Teenagers are smart people. Most of what goes on in their lives is designed to keep them busy so they don't get into either mischief or the marketplace. Their phones are just another piece of that. They have a lot of energy, and they want to do things that are real and worthwhile, but they're told they need a college degree first.
My 18-year-old son recently told me that he's considering slowing down the college process (he started at age 16) so he can take a job doing lighting for the college theatre. Cutting gels and crawling around on wire mesh to hang lights gives him joy and a sense of accomplishment. A couple years of that will give him real skills and knowledge that the always-on-their-phones cohort won't have.
Having free time just never happened between school, playing sports, music, and the work. Every year or so, I'd quit (or be fired) and not have a job for a month or so. Then summer would come around and either I'd have a lawn moving company or work as a lifeguard.
I needed a job to pay for the sports I wanted to play or the music I wanted to hear or create (instruments aren't cheap). As I got older, saving for dates and college were more important.
I stopped doing music stuff when girlfriends became interesting. Condoms were expensive.
Parents should stop handing everything to their kids. How else will they learn to handle long-term goal setting and achievement?
Yeah, I said it. You get bored because you're not willing you exercise yourself. You're sitting around waiting for someone else to be creative to stimulate you. Well, guess what, any environment will eventually become "normal", and observing a "normal" environment is boring. It is only when you're actively involved in changing, manipulating, improving your own environment that you see it as ever changing and exposing more detail.
You don't have to go outside. You don't even have to put down your phone. But, you do have to change from a consumer into a producer if you want to avoid boredom.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Everyone thinks the new advance means this generation will never be bored.
radio to TV
"you can watch images on a screen instead of just listening to the radio? you'll never be bored!"
TV to cable
"you have hundreds of tv channels instead of around 20? you'll never be bored"
streaming contenct
"you can watch anything at any time? you'll never be bored"
you can only watch/play things for so long during a day until you just feel "gross". Its not a matter of choices, its a matter of starting at a screen and being low energy that long
I know a lot of people who just aren't focused on anything long enough to discover any nuance or get any appreciation out of it. I was that way too until I slowed down and considered exactly what I wanted out of what I was doing, chose my activities more carefully, and just made myself stick with one thing at a time and see it through. I'm infinitely more satisfied now.
Twinstiq, game news
I'm a Gen X'er and am already board with the Internet. My kid's a Gen Z and he's board with the Internet.
There's nothing new on it. Just same shit, different day.
It's not bad to be "bored" -- in fact, it's a necessary and healthy part of brain function.
That's probably why, even with an excess of stimulation, people get "bored."
1. Brain needs "idle time" to declutter and store things into long term memory. If someone is stimulated constantly, the brain will force "boredom" on you in order to get you to disengage and let the "idle process" catch up on things. If you solider on despite that, you start forgetting things that didn't get stored into long term.
2. Like talking about the weather, it's a conversation starter to claim "boredom" to your peers. If this is why people think younger generations are "bored," then that's really missing the whole point of the exchange.
They are just as creative as we would expect a healthy human to be
OMG I'm so tired of hearing people tell me their bored. Being bored means you're willing to stay in the current rut you're in. It shows you're not willing to use your imagination, or to change your condition through your own action.
I can probably count on one hand how many times I've allowed myself to be really bored in my lifetime. Here's how I avoided boredom as a teenager, and continue today:
In the end it comes down to you. Boredom is just a state of mind - and you can control what you think.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
You really have to be a rather dull person to be bored. Here are some simple suggestions:
- Take a second job. You can use the money to address some of the problems you keep complaining about: student loans, expensive housing, poverty, etc.
- Learn a new skill: between YouTube, Udacity, Kindle, and Google Books you can learn just about anything for next to nothing.
- Volunteer for a charity.
- Do something outdoors, like hiking etc.
Hey man, the job market is tough for the younger crowd. Some side income can be really helpful. ....Are you SURE her interaction online is "passive"?
Yes. If she was making money off youtube, more power to her. She actually has the tools (I've seen to this) and the education (arts and communication school) to perhaps make a living off youtube. So far, she's chosen not to. (And in anticipation of the snide comments, I'm pretty sure she's not on xhamster either.)
People have become, by and large, content consumers
As opposed to people watching football? How man man-hours have you spent in your life watching TV?
That's not "opposed" at all. Watching football is exactly being a content consumer.
As to the man-hours I've spent watching TV, I confess growing up that TV was pretty much my life, all 3 channels of it. As an adult, TV has become a lot less important. I watch one movie a week, on Friday, with pizza and beer. I follow three 45 minute series, (sans commercials) on demand, and confidentially, I'm way behind at the moment. The rest of my off-time is spent reading, doing photography (my side business, content CREATION, not consumption) or working in the electronics lab upstairs. I've put some thought into this, and have made some effort to practice what I preach.
Wife turns on the TV first thing in the morning and just lets it drone. She's the football fanatic in the family -- I couldn't tell you who was in the last superbowl with a gun to my head. She has her own room with a barcolounger and her own TV and Roku. It's far enough away from my office to not be distracting.
Interestingly, both wife and daughter have clinical depression. The question in the back of my head is, are they spending every waking hour watching a screen (big or small) because they're depressed, or are they depressed because they don't create anything of their own? Things, memories, experiences. Side note: Maybe that's why so many young people appear emotionally underdeveloped these days. I think the popular word is "snowflake".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Oh, and, the job market -- daughter has a jobs at a department store one day a week. They want to give her more hours, (she's apparently good at it) but she doesn't think she can handle it. In this particular case, it's not about not having other choices. I suspect this is true for others in her age group also -- they could do productive stuff, but the lure of the little screen is just too great.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I've been looking at centrally located houses in my (relatively pricey) city. 1000 square feet starts at $200k, and they're stretching the definition of 1000. Also the neighborhood is kinda crap, which is odd given the crazy cost of the houses. But I suppose if you're spending 1/2 your money on your mortgage there isn't much left for anything else.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
stops being fun around 14. You want to start going further, but unless you're in a _very_ wealthy neighborhood or a _very_ bike friendly one then as soon as you're out of your little sub division you're bike lane free. The best part is when there's a lane going out but not coming back because the money ran out.
And you do _not_ ride in a major city without a bike lane. Cars will just plain run you off the road for fun. Nobody in a car likes cyclists.
I'm a roady with thousands of miles under my belt. I know what of I speak.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Assuming that technology or access to information is going to decrease boredom is not a new assumption, and it wasn't really true with cable/satellite tv, the early internet, etc. either. These things just allow boring people to be boring faster. Go outside and do something. Live a life. Sitting around consuming content and complaining you're bored isn't a life.
life is mundane and we have to get used to it? Some really fun stuff mixed in w/ existence.
This is a subject I have been thinking a lot about and this news is actually reassuring.... kids today are essentially getting the 'greatest hits' of culture - they don't have to put up with filler, they just skip to the next song, episode, film whatever.... Thinking that kids will get bored out of their minds in the long summer break makes me reassured that they will appreciate the good bits a little bit more.
What happens after generation Z? Generation AA? A1? A version 2.0?
Why would it stave off boredom?
Well, for us it did kill boredom, completely. Before the digital revolution, you had to wait so much. You could take a book, but if either reading or the particular book in question didn't suit your mood you were screwed as there was a limit to what you could carry around. I've spent so much time being bored out of my wits and the digital revolution ended it in an instant. As for the why, well it gave us instant access to a huge library of books, so there's usually something you feel interested in, but in the same package there's a game console, you can chat on the internet, you can chatter with friends, you can get some work or hobby stuff done, you can make plans for the evening, listen to music, and so on and so forth.
The real question isn't why phones / laptops / the internet would stave off boredom, but why it isn't working for the current generation. I suspect part of the reason is that although they in principle have access to a world of experience, in practice their exposure to the world is very limited. If all you do with your phone is chat and you don't feel like chatting then maybe it doesn't occur to you that you've got other options. Another part will be that they're at the school going age and not all schools do a particularly good job at providing an interesting experience.
I can in fact kind of relate to that because my own discovery that I like learning happened outside of the classroom and I often felt that whatever dreary class I was in was getting in my way, until I got a laptop. That changed everything. Before that point, after I finished my exercises I had no other option but to look out of the window as any other action would get me scolded. But afterwards, I could keep learning stuff, or I could amuse myself in other ways, while pretending to still be working.
...it's Generation U. Useless.
For the first time ever on planet earth, Teenagers get bored! News at 11!
If there is any difference, since the late 90's being bored was like a contest, where you came up with reasons why you were the most bored.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not even in Portland Oregon
Boredom can be valuable, since you then start to actively think, not passively think about the vast stream of information being sent to you. It gives you time to digest the information you already have, gives your brain time to be creative.
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve reached the end of the internet, I’ll just watch the same videos on YouTube until eventually I’m so bored I start clicking random things on my phone.”
The problem is that the internet is now seen as just a source of entertainment. The internet was originally designed to transport information and knowledge (OK, and the occasional porn). Even on Youtube, there are all sorts of videos and channels for actually LEARNING new things. Or find some other website that is based on something you would never think to learn. Go to the Louvre website. Find an instrument you would like to learn. Learn to build something. Learn to code. You can only be entertained for so long by people and ideas that weren't even good enough to make it on one of the 500 TV channels out there.
The old cliche is not wrong. I'm bored too, and it's not for lack of entertainment choices, the selection has never been better. Between Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and a bursting at the seams library of games (Steam), it seems to matter not. I'm bored more than I'm not.
It's a very subjective emotion, boredom. I firmly believe it has absolutely nothing to do with having something to do, or be amused by. It's a state of being jaded and supersaturated.
So you could increase the available games, entertainment and leisure activities by 10 fold, people will still get bored.
One interesting aspect of boredom I've discovered, is it seems to self-alleviate when your choices are forced. Like for example, the power goes out, now you're limited to battery power and non-electronic sources of amusement, and when the power was on, you'd never thought of those things as being interesting, but when you're forced into a substandard leisure activity, it's still just as fulfilling as the one you thought you wanted. Weird.
n/c
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What do you expect this is the generation eating tide pods and pulling condom's through their noses...
And butt chug sriracha
“Consume”
“Consume” refers to what we do with food: we ingest it, after which the food as such no longer exists. By analogy, we employ the same word for other products whose use uses them up. Applying it to durable goods, such as clothing or appliances, is a stretch. Applying it to published works (programs, recordings on a disk or in a file, books on paper or in a file), whose nature is to last indefinitely and which can be run, played or read any number of times, is stretching the word so far that it snaps. Playing a recording, or running a program, does not consume it.
Those who use “consume” in this context will say they don't mean it literally. What, then, does it mean? It means to regard copies of software and other works from a narrow economistic point of view. “Consume” is associated with the economics of material commodities, such as the fuel or electricity that a car uses up. Gasoline is a commodity, and so is electricity. Commodities are fungible: there is nothing special about a drop of gasoline that your car burns today versus another drop that it burned last week.
Do we want people to think of writings (software, news, any other kind) as a commodity, with the assumption that there is nothing special about any one story, article, program, or song? Should we treat them as fungible? That is the twisted viewpoint of an economist, or the accountant of a publishing company. It is no surprise that proprietary software would like you to think of the use of software as a commodity. Their twisted viewpoint comes through clearly in this article, which also refers to publications as “content.”
The narrow thinking associated with the idea that we “consume content” paves the way for laws such as the DMCA that forbid users to break the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) facilities in digital devices. If users think what they do with these devices is “consume,” they may see such restrictions as natural.
It also encourages the acceptation of “streaming” services, which use DRM to perversely limit listening to music so that it fits the assumptions of the word “consume.”
Why is this perverse usage spreading? Some may feel that the term sounds sophisticated, but rejecting it with cogent reasons can appear even more sophisticated. Others may be acting from business interests (their own, or their employers'). Their use of the term in prestigious forums gives the impression that it's the “correct” term.
To speak of “consuming” music, fiction, or any other artistic works is to treat them as products rather than as art. If you don't want to spread that attitude, you would do well to avoid using the term “consume” for them. What to use instead? We prefer specific verbs such as “listen to”, “watch”, “read” or “look at”, since they help to restrain the tendency to overgeneralize.
When it is absolutely necessary to generalize about all kinds of works and all media, we recommend “experience” or “give attention to” for an artistic work or a work to present a point of view, and “use” for a practically useful work.
From: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html
Man, pay for 3 months in a dumb phone, take her smartphone and pc, and kick that lazy cunt the fuck out.... That behavior is unacceptable for a teenager let alone a 20some.... You both have problems.
to choose from.
It's not infinite variety, it's extreme redundancy. Dominance of single view agenda.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
While I appreciate the conversation this topic generated - it should be noted the source article was purely an opinion piece. There were no studies to substantiate any of these claims nor a control group to compare against.
Dear Slashdot readers - in the future let's check for good source material before upvoting from firehose - thanks.
I'm going to ignore the language for a minute and answer honestly. Yes, we do both have a problem. My own counselors keep asking the same question "Why haven't you extracted yourself from this situation?" The answers are complex and involve duty to my family taking precedence over my own happiness, and I know that's not a good reason.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That's playing with words. "Content consumer" is a known term with a known definition. It involves experiencing content created by another with a minimum of interaction. Whether the content still exists after being experienced by the consumer is moot. How this fits in with DRM is an entirely different discussion. We were talking about social impact, not legal details. You have a nice, shiny ax there. But you're grinding it in the wrong building.
Tablets and smartphones tend to be content consumption devices. They *could* do more, but the necessary work in UI has not yet been done to make them reasonable content creation devices, except in the trivial "add ears and nose to my photo" social media gimmicks. (Side note - admittedly, this is my own axe.) Content creation tends to require the addition of the "k" and "m" of KVM. Which gives you devices that aren't really laptops and aren't really tablets and don't do either well. (And yes, there are other devices besides "k" and "m". I have a Bamboo tablet (a function the touch screen should be doing!) and a motorized mixer that's supported by Adobe Lightroom. But those functions could easily be done by gestures instead, if anyone ever put a reasonable system together.)
Part of this dichotomy is the pressure of the buying community. The market for a really well made, well integrated touch-only tool for doing professional level photo or video creation, for instance, doesn't exist. And yesssss I know someone once filmed a movie on an iphone and released it at Cannes. It's the exception that proves the rule -- like an elephant doing ballet, the remarkable thing is not how good her Arabesque is, but that she's doing it at all. Chances are not good that directors will replace their RED cameras with iphones on little stands anytime soon.
Tablets and smartphones have found their niche, in content CONSUMPTION (there's that word again) and there just isn't the market pressure to do much else with them. Sucks for me, as I'd really like to do my creation on a touch interface instead of spending hours scraping my rat.
Again, whether the "consumption" mindset leads to more draconian DRM is entirely besides the point. It is what it is.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
When I see young people driving around with their car stereos at high volume, I wonder that they are not satisfied with their own thoughts. Perhaps that is the major problem. The word amusement -- our culture's summum bonum -- has at its roots the stopping of thought. I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, "I have never found the companion more companionable than solitude."
Animals in a Zoo are bored
Casteism
"You are a product of your environment" --Clement Stone
You'll be depressed/unhappy when your environment doesn't foster creativity/self-actualization in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
Boredom isn't about finding something fun, it's about avoiding what pops up when one listens to his mind. It's about chasing dopamine to drown the rest. And like any dopamine high, it's tolerance building. So whatever one fights boredom with, he'll get bored of it.