Let your imagination wander for a moment. Picture a free evening, with no responsibilities or plans. I wonder what your first thought is. Watch a movie? A video or two? Imagine what it would be like to have none of the movies, TV or radio programs, sporting events, web sites, or theme parks that are available to modern people in developed countries. It is hard to conceive of such an existence; in fact, some would find it frightening. How would we survive the famine of entertainment? What would we do with ourselves? What did previous generations do?

    In a given weekend, my city can offer baseball and football excitement (at the right season), multiple concerts, movies in cinemas and on video, art exhibits and plays, plus a plethora of TV channels to watch at home. It seems almost impossible that anyone could be bored in this culture of entertainment, and yet, paradoxically, a recent consumer survey revealed a "boredom boom": most people desired more novelty in their lives.

    We are bored despite living in remarkable times. Not unlike drug users who develop a tolerance and need larger doses to achieve the same effect, we, too, have developed a tolerance for amazing events as well as for entertainment itself. Almost 30 years ago, a Reader's Digest article made the diagnosis that "boredom has become the disease of our time."2 This is not unique to the United States. Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury recently remarked, "We are a deeply and dangerously bored society, and we are reluctant to look for the root of that. What has happened to us?"

    Since the mid-1800s, both lifespan and leisure time have increased enormously. Back then, people worked 70 hours a week and lived 40 years; today in developed countries, people can work 40 hours a week and live 70 years, or more. One author calculates the average person has about 33,000 more leisure hours than did a person 150 years ago.

    Not only that, but the type of leisure activities people prefer has changed. Much time is spent alone in front of electronic entertainment. Previously, folks told stories, made music, and socialized with the family and local community. But population has shifted from rural areas to industrialized centersanonymity is more easily achieved in the big city than in the small town. Now people rarely get together to visit or play games. We no longer sit on the porch and talk to neighbors; we go inside, turn on the air conditioning, shut the door, and engage in solitary activity.

    Boredom is predictable when there is nothing to do, but what about the idea that it develops from  having too much entertainment? Almost everywhere we go, something is trying to keep us amused. Long lines at amusement parks have overhead TVs to help pass the time. Airlines show movies. Cars include radios, tape decks, and now DVD players. I recently stopped at a gas station and was amazed to find a small video screen at each pump, just to make sure I would not get bored for the few minutes it took to refuel

!

Entertained to Excess

    When stimulation comes from every angle, people reach a point of being unable to react with much depth to anything. The boredom we feel today is probably due to overload even more than underload. Instead of making our own entertainment, we rely on radio, TV, movies, video games, and web-surfing. These things are not intrinsically bad; the problem arises when we depend on them too much. Also, it is no longer necessary to put effort into being entertained; we can be "couch potatoes" and let it happen passively. Neil Gablar (Life: The Movie How Entertainment Conquered Reality) claims everything must be exciting to grab our attention; as the media create expectations, ordinary life appears increasingly boring, and we grow more dissatisfied.

    Additionally, to the contemporary mind, goodness and beauty often seem boring and unstimulating. They do not give the same adrenaline rush that violence and immorality do. TV increasingly displays abnormal behavior and extreme sports to engage us. Those of us who do not hunger for such excessive stimulation can still find plenty of entertainment in the endless shopping malls, restaurants, fitness clubs, bookstores, tennis clubs, golf courses, concerts, movies theaters, and late night television. What effect does this surplus of diversions have? I suggest that it actually stunts our creative capacity to make and find healthy entertainment. It is similar to neglecting exercise; eventually we forget how to use our "imagination muscles." As our inner resources shrivel, we seek greater stimulation from the outsidea bigger and bigger fix to get the same sense of amusement.

    Not only is our society overrun with countless entertainment options; we are also bombarded by advertisements designed to make us bored with what we have. Such marketing leaves some people so chronically disappointed by false promises that they have shut down their deepest longings and become apathetic and dissatisfied.

Fragmentation of Faith

    Author Patricia Spacks sees a correlation between boredom and faith. She suggests that as Christian faith declines, boredom increases. The Christian view of life gave a motive to endure struggles and boredom. Contentment was preached as an important virtue. People felt responsible to work hard,  take an interest in life, and get involved with family and the broader community. Boredom was regarded as either a sin or a sign of moral weakness or character failure. For Spacks, boredom is a metaphor for the postmodern condition: if there is no God out there to provide a sense of purpose, how can you find meaning and happiness?

    The writer of Ecclesiastes describes seeking satisfaction in every possible form of activity: pleasure, wealth, gardens, work, and (many) beautiful women. Instead, he ended up with a sense of emptiness that sounds like the description of boredom: "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired . . . Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11niv).

Steps to the Never-bored-again Life!

    Obviously certain tasks are inherently tedious in a fallen world, but how we approach them is crucial. Boredom can be a healthy stimulus to action and a challenge to use our creativity. But to face the most monotonous parts of life, we must remember the big picture that gives meaning to the little things.

    When I am repairing the lawnmower yet again or mowing the grass for the sixteenth time this season, I have to remember these efforts contribute to creating a place of beauty in my garden, a place people can enjoy. Think, "Big picture!" when you are washing the dishesask, Where does this fit in with managing a family and enjoying a marriage?

    Busyness and addiction to constant entertainment prevents cultivating true wonder at the ordinary things of life. We need to relearn the art of delighting in the simpleto, as we say, stop and smell the roses. Mary Pipher writes, "Most real life is rather quiet and routine. Most pleasures are small pleasures: a hot shower, a sunset, a bowl of good soup, a good book. Television suggests that life is high drama, love and sex Instead of ennobling our ordinary experiences, television suggests that they are not of sufficient interest to document."

    Is God sitting back, feeling bored with His creation? Scripture indicates He is passionate about all He has made, enjoying its beauty and glory. And yet He is a God who grieves over the ugliness of sin. He wants us to develop our gifts, but He also wants us to work hardredemptivelyagainst the evil and brokenness of our world. We are to reflect the image of God, not only in how we enjoy His creation, but also in how we fight against wickedness.

    It was Edmond Burke who once said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Resignation, apathy, and boredom invade when we feel hopeless and helpless. With such an attitude, there is no desire to create a place of beauty out of ugliness, a place of order out of chaos. If we catch a glimpse of the bigger picture, where our story fits with His, then we are motivated to action. The test of our spirituality is not in our best clothes or in our religious settings, but in our response to the everyday and the unavoidablethe test is in our ability to bring good out of hardship and joy out of the mundane. We have all, to some degree, lost sight of that for which we have been made. Oftentimes we cannot see the drama of the bigger picture where so much is at stake. We are called to an adventure of living, which may have its profoundly boring and frustrating moments, but which gives meaning to an existence in which every situation has significance.

    Ultimately, then, we are faced with a choice. We can surf the web and the waves in order to relieve our boredom. Or we can respond to the call to love and serve God, who promises partly now and completely in the future to satisfy our pangs of hunger and our deepest thirst for meaning and significance. He is the One who gives us a passion for living and helps us patiently endure the inevitable intervening moments of tedium. As we live in relationship with Him and in the light of what He has told us about the world, our perspective on the often difficult and boring things of life will gradually be transformed.

Richard Winter

Richard Winter is author of Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment, published by InterVarsity Press. For ordering information, please visit our bookstore.

     1 Yankelovivh Partners Market Research Study of Consumer Attitudes (2000).
      2 Judson Gooding, "How to Cope With Boredom," Reader's Digest, (February 1976).
    3 Mary Pipher, The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996).