The Loss of Social Boredom

It's summer. You and your friends are too young for jobs, too young to drive, and no where to go anyway. Who are these friends? The friends who happen to live within walking or biking distance. You cycle through various activities. You meet at each others house to play video games. You ride bikes through the neighborhood. You play hours of basketball. You sit around in your friends driveway. And when the streetlights come on, you go home. You eat dinner, go into your room, turn on your game console, and call the person you just spent all day with. And the same conversation about nothing continues. 30 years later, every time you talk, it comes up. How good those days were. 

The invention and progression of technology has been, to be frank, insane in the past 3 decades. A lot of it has been good. But I'm often grieved-I'm at a restaurant and see a group of 3 friends all sitting silently on their phones laughing to themselves, by themselves. Or a couple where one looks at the top of the head of their partner who is mindlessly scrolling and tossing out unconvincing affirmatives as if a dialogue is happening. Or the kid desperately trying to get the attention of the parent who insists "I hear you" without making any eye contact. I'm grieved and I wonder "What are we doing to ourselves?"

​A particular experience I think we've lost is being bored around each other. Those conversations when you were a kid without phone happened from something that happened or an idea that entered your mind from the aimlessness of your moment. The conversations that can happen from being lost in thought and asking the person next to you about what they think seem to be lost. Even if you try, the person next to you would need to be engaged. What we get now seems to be annoyance at the lack of direction or even purpose of the question. 

More and more, there are resources trying to help people disconnect so they can reconnect. This impacts focus and levels of anxiety to be sure. As a therapist that specializes in relationships though, I'm confident finding ways to reduce technology use in your home and in your family will have impacts that might not even be able to measured. 

Have you tried and failed to make these changes on your own? Contact us today for a free consultation.