If you are a “travel bug” and feel stir-crazy staying at home, try a virtual vacation, or even a virtual visit with someone who lives where you want to visit. If you spend each day working at home remotely and feel isolated, the antidote would be to reach out to friends to see if you can have a virtual coffee break or virtual dinners a few times a week. Community connection reduces social isolation. Social distancing leads to disconnection and is associated with boredom. Therefore, it may be necessary to reset your mindset from viewing generally dull activities-such as washing dishes, putting away laundry, or picking up groceries-as an opportunity to transform and thereby view these tasks as fun and productive activities. As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, what is considered dull or fun is also related to your perception. It is important to find ways to maximize fun and minimize behaviors or events that are dull. Therefore, the antidote is to add stimulation and increase the number of daily satisfying activities. The data suggest that low-stimulation environments and lack of control over the situation generate boredom. In light of our current situation and the need to lessen the deleterious effects of boredom, what can we do? Chin et al., propose that a “sense of agency” or control over one’s situation counteracts boredom. The COVID-19 pandemic is beyond our control given the many uncertainties attendant to stemming the spread of the virus and finding a successful vaccine. Boredom grows when we lack control and feel trapped in a low-stimulation (monotonous) situation (Bench & Lench, 2019 Chin et al., 2017). Low stimulation due to lockdowns and interpersonal distancing may enhance the negative emotions associated with boredom-like worry about one’s health and that of friends and family, financial problems, the lack of a clear end in sight of the pandemic with a return to normalcy, reports of peaks in infection, and lack of an effective vaccine. Chin et al., found that boredom was associated with negative emotions and predictive of loneliness, anger, sadness, and worry. Negative emotions are associated with boredom.Perhaps young people-more than older age individuals-may be particularly susceptible to boredom in such low stimulation environments. COVID-19 precautionary measures have led to reductions in access to leisure activities (for example, sporting events) and social distancing that greatly limits social get-togethers. Chin et al., found that boredom was prevalent among young people, males, the unmarried, and those in lower-income groups, but did not differ across racial groups. Young people, particularly males, are the most likely to be bored.Given that these are pre-pandemic findings, the rate and frequency of boredom may be much higher during the COVID-19 lockdown. adults reported experiencing boredom at least once over the 10-day sampling period (Chin et al., 2017). Sixty-three percent of a sample of 3,867 U.S. Researchers studying boredom have found the following:
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