Reclaiming Boredom

I recently read this comic* by Kate Wheeler that really resonated with me. I recommend you read it, but to summarize, Kate remembers what it was like as a child to be bored, which led to letting her mind wander. In the current time, she realizes that she was finding herself grabbing her phone whenever she found an idle moment.

*The comic is also available on the Washington Post, but it is paywalled.

At best, my phone was a time waster. At worst, a thief of boredom and creativity.

—Kate Wheeler

Kate deleted “everything interesting” from her phone in an attempt to get back the feeling of boredom and creativity that she experienced as a kid, and she seems to have been successful with that.

Reading Kate's story inspired me to try something similar. I hope to not only to encourage my creativity again through boredom, but also to disconnect from the barrage of news and “junk food” that social media often serves up, as well as connect with people outside of the context of apps on my phone.

My experiment will slightly vary from Kate's. For the month of February, I am going to delete social media apps from my phone (i.e., Instagram, Mastodon, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter), but I'll give myself permission to make occasional, intentional visits to the desktop versions of these sites while sitting at my computer, and spend a limited amount of time on them.

I intend on running this experiment for a month and I'll see what happens! So if you don't see me around those networks as often, now you know why. I intend on posting a recap at the end of month, so see ya then! 👋🏽