The five types of boredom, why they might be good for us, and a test for boredom
Evolution has burdened both man and beast with a sense of boredom, but for what purpose? Caroline Williams examines the causes and kinds of our ennui.
As I sit, trying to concentrate, my toes are being gently nibbled. It's my dog, Jango, an intelligent working breed, and he's telling me he is bored. I know from experience that if I don't take him out right now, or at least find him a toy, he will either pull my socks off and run away with them or start barking like a beast possessed.
His cousins in the wild don't seem to suffer the same problem. Coyotes spend 90 per cent of their time apparently doing nothing, but never seem to get fed up, according to Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the United States, who has studied them for years.
"They might be lying down but their eyes are moving and their heads are moving and they are constantly vigilant," he says.
Trapped indoors, Jango has little to be vigilant about, and a lot of spare mental capacity. Bored office workers everywhere will know the feeling.
We tend to think of boredom as a price we pay for being intelligent and self-aware. Clearly we aren't the only species to suffer. Yet, given how common this emotion is in daily life, it's surprising how little attention it has received. Now that is changing and, as interest increases, researchers are addressing some fascinating questions. What exactly is boredom? Why are some people more prone to it than others? What is it for? Is it a good or bad thing? And what can we do to resist it when it strikes? Some of the answers are hotly contested - boredom, it turns out, is really rather stimulating.
Like other emotions, boredom didn't just arise spontaneously when humans came on the scene. Many creatures, including mammals, birds and even some reptiles, seem to have a version of it, suggesting that there is some kind of survival advantage to feeling bored. The most plausible explanation is that it serves as a motivator. Boredom could have evolved as a kind of kick up the backside, suggests animal psychologist Francoise Wemelsfelder, at Scotland's Rural College, in Edinburgh.
"If a wild animal has done nothing for a while there is a lot of evidence that it will go out to look for things to do, and there is definitely survival value in that," she says. It will know, for example, that an escape route is blocked, because it has explored its territory.
