Ever find yourself drifting into boredom? Go on, hands up if you have. Now, keep them raised if your next move is to unlock your phone and dive straight into the endless scroll of Instagram. Don’t worry mine’s up there too.
In today’s modern world, our downtime is often filled with screens of notifications, scrolling, streaming trends, podcasts, new video reels on TikTok, and so many more distractions. In fact, in 2025 alone, Gen Z has chewed up about more than 6 hours of screen time per day.
That’s already a sixth of our daily lives spent on distractions of social media. We’ve always heard of the importance of unplugging from our phones and spending time in the real world.
But what if the real problem with our usage is not why we consume so much screen time, but rather how we consume empty time?
Our usage of social media is a way to escape the silence of being bored. Instead of doing one of your own hobbies we rather get lost in the world of Instagram or TikTok.
We think of boredom in a negative connotation when we’re feeling unmotivated, unstimulated, or even unfocused. However, what isn’t known about boredom is its secret ingredient.
When we’re bored, our minds actually begin to wander, or as some psychologists call it the default mode network, a network that is active when we are primarily in a state of rest.
Think up when you’re watching a movie, taking a coffee break, writing down some thoughts, like I am right now, or you’re alone in your thoughts. You’re usually in a state of rest or relaxation instead of actively exercising more active networks (which I will get to in a minute). It’s not just a phenomenon; it’s how our body recharges and takes itself off from tasks or situations that can overstimulate the neural networks.
So what’s the problem with being bored?
The common saying is that boredom is bad because we associate it with other negative emotions like frustration, apathy, and indifference according to studies.
In fact, the connection between these states of feeling make it unclear as to whether boredom is really a low-energy state. The other is that we are an overstimulated society; our brains are constantly processing sensory information from our environments.
And yes, this includes social media as one of the biggest culprits. It rewards high engagement, stimulating our reward system through dopamine into staying glued to our phones.
“But that shouldn’t be a big deal. What do I lose when I’m not bored?” That’s a fair question, and one I ask myself. The answer lies in how social media engagement rewires our minds, as mentioned with the reward system above.
Social media is a high-stimulation, high-engagement algorithm that engages in messages that often avoids the default network mode while keeping the reward system constantly active; think up getting FOMO while scrolling through your best friend’s Instagram story while they’re enjoying a concert without you.
That little feeling? That’s overstimulation for you.
So while scrolling may not seem like doing much, it’s actually doing the opposite. It actually explains so much of our mental clutter when we scroll on social media; it keeps our minds busy in the wrong ways that we lose our chance to mentally declutter.
Boredom may not be the enemy that we believed it was. It may be a signal for us to declutter, to sit with our thoughts, and be curious. If you listen closely, you may actually find a lot more happening than just the sound of silence.
If you have any thoughts on this research, let us know at HerCampusSJSU!