I鈥檓 not sure exactly when boredom died out completely. Maybe it was sometime after 2007, when the iPhone was first introduced, or maybe it was a little later, when streaming video became truly embedded in our society.

Either way, we鈥檙e now living in a post-boredom world.

It鈥檚 a weird place to be.

Everyone who reaches middle age winds up living on two sides of some momentous event.

For those born in the late Victorian era, they grew up with horses and carts, and lived to see moving pictures, cars, and airplanes.

Plenty of people can find a similar before and after in their own lives 鈥� the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show.

For me, aside from the fact that the planet used to not be on fire all the time, it鈥檚 the fact that I grew up in boredomland, and now I live somewhere else, unfamiliar and weird.

The dividing line between the world of boredom and the world post-boredom is harder to pin down. Its origins may even go back to the dawn of television, which was always delivering something to keep your eyeballs occupied 鈥� although I remember summer re-runs, so boredom was still a thing well into the 1980s.

The crux of the matter is that we can now choose to be bored, but we no longer have boredom thrust upon us.

There is always something at hand to entertain 鈥� or more accurately, to distract.

Social media, streaming video and audio services, podcasts, YouTube, video games, websites, ebooks 鈥� there is more stuff than you could possibly consume in a lifetime.

If you own a smartphone, a computer, or a TV, you have essentially limitless options for entertainment.

I wonder what this is going to do to us as a society.

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I鈥檓 trying not to be too doom-and-gloom about this. I don鈥檛 think that a generation growing up without boredom will all be dead-eyed sociopaths or anything.

For example, there were major changes in society as we adjusted to growing crops, using writing, or the arrival of the printing press.

(But people have argued that the printing press caused several hundred years of genocidal religious wars in Europe, so maybe that鈥檚 not the best example.)

It鈥檚 possible that boredom, like horseback riding, sailing, and going to the opera, may become an affectation of the upper classes, or a social signifier for people who want to appear cultured.

When you have access to literally tens of thousands of movies and TV shows, not to mention millions of books, saying 鈥淣othing interests me, I鈥檓 bored,鈥� is a good way of suggesting you鈥檙e cultured, without actually, you know, doing anything.

Then again, maybe it鈥檚 hopeful that in the face of everything you can do, the endless 鈥渃onsumption鈥� of 鈥渃ontent,鈥� people can still find a way to be bored.

When none of those movies or books or paintings is just right for you, that鈥檚 when people start getting creative, and making something of their own.

- Matthew Claxton is a reporter with the 91原创 Advance Times

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