Social media proves to be very useful in alleviating boredom but, at the same time, they can block creativity and the possibility of discovering new passions because they require too much time and a lot of energy.
This is what emerges from the study coordinated by Trinity College Dublin and published in the journal Marketing Theory.
Led by Stephen Murphy, the research shows that boredom can be a very positive thing and that it could be useful to do periods of digital detox, the so-called 'digital detox'.
The data, relating to 15 participants in Great Britain and Ireland, were collected between 2020 and 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and indicate that the lockdown, the suspension of work activities and enforced solitude have provided to many people the rare opportunity to experience the two levels of boredom, the superficial and the profound, identified by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Superficial boredom, the most common, can be defined as the feeling of restlessness, familiar to many, which drives us to seek temporary distractions from everyday life: in this area, social media and smartphones play a fundamental role.
Deep boredom, on the other hand, comes from an abundance of uninterrupted time spent in relative solitude and, according to Heidegger,
"Boredom may seem like an extremely negative concept but, in reality, it can be very positive if people are given the opportunity to think without distractions," explains Timothy Hill, of the British University of Bath, one of the authors of study.
"The problem we've observed is that social media can alleviate superficial boredom, but - adds Hill - distraction absorbs time and energy and can prevent people from progressing towards a state of profound boredom, in which they could discover new passions. ".