Boredom is a relatively new, first-world problem

Boredom is a relatively new, first-world problem. Because for the span of human history, there was too much to do, which prevented humans from becoming bored.

So evolutionarily speaking, we don’t know how to cope with boredom. Thus, we find ways to fill periods of downtime with technology, namely video games, mindless TV, and social media.

Which was fine until the algorithms took over.

Now, we have millions of bored people endlessly scrolling feeds custom made just for them. With posts and ads uniquely designed to eliminate the boredom of each user, consequently forming habits and emotional demands for more and more content.

Each new like or funny video further reinforces our dependency on social media to prevent us from that foreign feeling of boredom.

But the algorithms have placed us within bubbles of our own creation, thanks to the constant feedback loop of likes and engagement:

We engage with one post and the algorithms believe we should see similar posts, which we may also engage with, confirming to the algorithms to send even more similar posts our way. Soon, it’s all we see, until a new interest of ours is alerted to the algorithms.

Consequently, our inability to handle boredom is creating dopamine-dependent prisons for us, designed to sell more ads and keep us in an endless loop of self-reinforcing beliefs.