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If you think about it, one of the biggest travesties committed by technology has been to take away our boredom. True, we still get bored, but it gave us quick and easy access to a million little trivialities to engage us, even if slightly. This, I realized, is bad, because extended periods of boredom have always been the times when people are most thoughtful and creative. Being bored with no phone or internet forces you to be imaginative and actually do something productive-ish. Think of those times when the power has gone out for a while, or your phone has died of something other than needing a recharge. Don't you accomplish things? Don't you get around to some of those things you've been meaning to do forever but haven't found the time for?
I'm old enough to have grown up without smart phones and limited internet. Even video games can get boring if you play the same handful too much. To be sure, I did have a tv in my room, often on as background noise and distraction, but there were many times when there was nothing worth watching. I think of some of my brightest and most creative moments, and some of the best came from sitting and thinking with no distractions. I once figured out a math concept regarding square numbers while sitting on the toilet and looking at the arrangement of tiles. Considering that very idea wasn't introduced until my third year of college in my linear algebra class, I'd say I did well, but I likely would never have realized any of it had I had a phone to constantly be the source of my focus. Newton figured out calculus and basic physics during his year off from college working on the family farm. Einstein did much of his thinking while working as a patent clerk, something I imagine to not have involved too much work or mental effort.
It's not that we can't cut out the distractions, but we rarely do, as everything is so readily available, easy to use, and we don't want to be bored. I wonder if we don't need to start setting up periods of time where we aren't allowed any tech or reading material, in order to force ourselves to use our minds.
I'm old enough to have grown up without smart phones and limited internet. Even video games can get boring if you play the same handful too much. To be sure, I did have a tv in my room, often on as background noise and distraction, but there were many times when there was nothing worth watching. I think of some of my brightest and most creative moments, and some of the best came from sitting and thinking with no distractions. I once figured out a math concept regarding square numbers while sitting on the toilet and looking at the arrangement of tiles. Considering that very idea wasn't introduced until my third year of college in my linear algebra class, I'd say I did well, but I likely would never have realized any of it had I had a phone to constantly be the source of my focus. Newton figured out calculus and basic physics during his year off from college working on the family farm. Einstein did much of his thinking while working as a patent clerk, something I imagine to not have involved too much work or mental effort.
It's not that we can't cut out the distractions, but we rarely do, as everything is so readily available, easy to use, and we don't want to be bored. I wonder if we don't need to start setting up periods of time where we aren't allowed any tech or reading material, in order to force ourselves to use our minds.
