Boredom belief moderates the mental health impact of boredom among young people: Correlational and multi-wave longitudinal evidence gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Young people's experience of boredom and its psychological health sequelae have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study examined the moderating role of boredom beliefs-the extent to which one affectively dislikes boredom (boredom dislike) and cognitively accepts it (boredom normalcy)-on the association between boredom experience and mental well-being. We also validated a new measure of boredom beliefs in two different samples of young people. METHOD: We report data from a correlational study with British young people aged 12-25 (Study 1; N = 2495) and a 16-week eight-wave within-subject study with Israeli adolescents aged 12-18 (Study 2; N = 314). RESULTS: Across both studies, disliking boredom was associated with higher frequency and intensity of boredom. Boredom dislike moderated the negative association between boredom and mental well-being, such that the association was more salient among those who strongly disliked boredom. Normalizing boredom was positively associated with mental well-being. The measure of boredom beliefs demonstrated fair validity and reliability. CONCLUSION: Results provide novel insights into the potential buffering effect of boredom beliefs against the mental health impact of boredom, particularly at a time of reduced activity. These findings generalize across two different countries.

Attention Drifting In and Out: The Boredom Feedback Model.

We synthesize established and emerging research to propose a feedback process model that explicates key antecedents, experiences, and consequences of the emotion boredom. The proposed Boredom Feedback Model posits that the dynamic process of boredom resembles a feedback loop that centers on attention shifts instigated by inadequate attentional engagement. Inadequate attentional engagement is a discrepancy between desired and actual levels of attentional engagement and is a product of external and internal influences, reflected in objective resources and cognitive appraisals. The model sheds light on several essential yet unresolved puzzles in the literature, including how people learn to cope with boredom, how to understand the relation between self-control and boredom, how the roles of attention and meaning in boredom can be integrated, why boredom is associated with both high- and low-arousal negative emotions, and what contributes to chronic boredom. The model offers testable hypotheses for future research.

What is boredom proneness? A comparison of three characterizations.

OBJECTIVE: Boredom proneness is associated with various problematic behaviors and mental health issues. Despite its wide-ranging implication, boredom proneness as a trait-like construct suffers from conceptual ambiguity and measurement issues. We examined whether boredom proneness represents individual differences in (a) the frequency of getting bored, (b) the intensity of boredom, and/or (c) a holistic perception of life being boring (perceived life boredom). METHOD: Across Study 1 (U.S. Sample, N = 495; HK Sample, N = 231) and Study 2 (N = 608), we tested the construct validity of boredom proneness by estimating its association with measures of the three possible characterizations (convergent validity), and examined to what extent associations between boredom proneness and variables relevant to well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, psychological distress) could be reproduced with the three potential characterizations (concurrent validity). RESULTS: Results suggest that each of the three characterizations represents some aspect of boredom proneness, and they generally reproduced boredom proneness' associations with other variables. Among them, perceived life boredom had the strongest convergent and concurrent validity. CONCLUSION: Our findings provide novel insights into the characterization of boredom proneness and its hitherto poorly understood relationship with psychological well-being.

Fast-forward to boredom: How switching behavior on digital media makes people more bored.

Boredom is unpleasant, with people going to great lengths to avoid it. One way to escape boredom and increase stimulation is to consume digital media, for example watching short videos on YouTube or TikTok. One common way that people watch these videos is to switch between videos and fast-forward through them, a form of viewing we call digital switching. Here, we hypothesize that people consume media this way to avoid boredom, but this behavior paradoxically intensifies boredom. Across seven experiments (total N = 1,223; six preregistered), we found a bidirectional, causal relationship between boredom and digital switching. When participants were bored, they switched (Study 1), and they believed that switching would help them avoid boredom (Study 2). Switching between videos (Study 3) and within video (Study 4), however, led not to less boredom but more boredom; it also reduced satisfaction, reduced attention, and lowered meaning. Even when participants had the freedom to watch videos of personal choice and interest on YouTube, digital switching still intensified boredom (Study 5). However, when examining digital switching with online articles and with nonuniversity samples, the findings were less conclusive (Study 6), potentially due to factors such as opportunity cost (Study 7). Overall, our findings suggest that attempts to avoid boredom through digital switching may sometimes inadvertently exacerbate it. When watching videos, enjoyment likely comes from immersing oneself in the videos rather than swiping through them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Whatever will bore, will bore: The mere anticipation of boredom exacerbates its occurrence in lectures.

BACKGROUND: Academic boredom is ubiquitous, and it leads to a range of adverse learning outcomes. Given that students often make estimates of how boring lectures are, does anticipating a lecture to be boring shape their actual experience of boredom? AIMS: The current research investigated whether anticipated boredom intensifies subsequent boredom felt in lectures. SAMPLES: We recruited undergraduate students to participate in three studies. METHODS: Study 1 (N = 121) and study 2 (N = 130) were conducted in natural university lecture environments. We found that students who anticipated a lecture to bore them more subsequently felt more bored by it. In study 3 (N = 92), we experimentally manipulated anticipated boredom before participants watched a lecture video. We found that those who were led to anticipate higher levels of boredom felt more bored by the video. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results converged to indicate that the mere expectation that a lecture will be boring may be sufficient to exacerbate its subsequent occurrence. We discuss these findings in the contexts of affective forecasting and education.

Boredom begets boredom: An experience sampling study on the impact of teacher boredom on student boredom and motivation.

BACKGROUND: Boredom is a common complaint among students. Boredom was previously found to be negatively associated with academic outcomes, such as academic motivation, strategies, and achievement. It is of interest to understand students' in-class boredom, especially factors that might exacerbate it. AIMS: The current study examines the influence of teacher's boredom on students' in-class boredom and learning experience. It aims to understand the relationship between teacher boredom, students' perceived teacher boredom, student boredom, and student learning motivation. SAMPLE: A total of 437 students (54.8% female, MAge  = 14.5 years, SD = 1.6) and 17 of their teachers (29.4% female, 76.5% 40 years old or below) participated in the study. METHODS: We conducted an experience sampling study, in which participants completed a 2-week diary. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results from multilevel modelling of 2,675 post-class evaluations indicated that teacher boredom was negatively associated with students' motivation. However, the relationship between teacher boredom and students' perceived teacher boredom was not significant, suggesting that students did not accurately perceive whether their teacher was bored. Results from indirect effect analysis further revealed that students' perception of teacher boredom predicted student learning motivation through student boredom. In other words, perceiving teachers being bored promoted students' own feeling of boredom, which in turn reduced their learning motivation. Together, these results indicate that when a teacher is bored in class, or when students perceive that their teacher is bored, students would have lower learning motivation.