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Why do people get bored and what are the dangers?
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Imagine that you have been waiting in line to see a doctor for a long time, and your turn never comes. It seems that even the second hand is deliberately slowing down the passage of time. The wait drags on painfully long, all the pictures on the walls near the doctor's office are examined in minute detail, as are the people sitting nearby, waiting for their turn. Irritation grows from the fact that there is nothing to do, and the phrase comes to mind: "I'm bored!"
Although boredom is usually perceived as a temporary inconvenience that can be easily resolved by changing circumstances or activities, it can also be a dangerous stressor that can lead to serious health problems.
Boredom in the workplace can lead to accidents if, for example, a person is engaged in activities that require attention (drivers, health workers).
At the behavioral level, boredom is linked to impulse control problems that trigger overeating, alcohol and drug abuse, and gambling.
It is not for nothing that the expression “Bored to death” exists. It very well characterizes the consequences of a seemingly harmless condition.
Despite the fact that boredom can cause many problems, scientific evidence for this process is still far away. Boredom still remains something mysterious and unexplored.
Psychologist John Eastwood of York University, Canada, and his fellow scientists have attempted to understand the mental processes underlying the feeling of boredom.
The experts' article, published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, brings together several previous studies.
Based on the studied material with which the specialists worked, in their opinion, boredom is a state that causes disgust, when a person wants, but cannot change the activity. This state occurs due to failures in the parts of the brain that regulate attention.
A person is bored when he or she does not pay attention to internal information (thoughts and feelings), external stimuli (when he or she becomes indifferent to what is happening around). Researchers hope that developing new strategies to combat boredom will help alleviate the condition of patients, and will also be able to distinguish between failures of cognitive processes that are often confused with boredom.