Rachmaninoff composed his first piano concerto at age 17. It takes a certain amount of obsessiveness to be able to compose great music like that. Just imagine if that obsessive nature had been exploited by video games instead?
yeah he was just "distracted" writing "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John" and other of such sort instead of what he was supposed to do
Excellent points! As a 79 year-old with only a flip phone (which I only use when I absolutely need to) I still spend half my time in front of screens. What to do with the other half? Aerobic exercise (with NO electronic distractions), chatting with my wife, reading, working puzzles, listening to music especially the 19th century sort that allows my mind to wander, meditating, napping, chores around the house, petting the cat, looking out the window... and that lifestyle has left me creative to a fault and generally satisfied. So go thou and do likewise!
This reminds me of a man I knew that quit smoking. The watershed moment came when he simply realized "Why do I have to smoke a cigarette on my walk through the parking lot to my car?"
So he stopped, and eventually cut out smoking entirely by first focusing on those interstitial moments.
I had a similar experience when I was addicted to smart phones and social media a few years ago. I found myself grabbing my phone during times when my phone was unnecessary. As a new mom, this often meant my phone was in my hand the moment my son didn't need my immediate attention. What we both lost during that time can never be returned, but I try to give myself grace. I quit, at least.
I'd like to see the return of sacred boredom spaces. Lines, red lights, hospital waiting rooms, restaurants, the bathroom. Like realizing that the afterwork cigarette does not need to happen in the parking lot, I wish we all as a society could agree that some places are sacred, that some places are meant for boredom.
I had a quote on my notebook in junior high. I don't know who said it, probably an offhand remark from a pop idol in a teen magazine, but the quote was "Boredom is an excellent motivator."
I repeat this to my son whenever he complains of boredom. He hates it, he hates it with an intensity that helps me know I am on the right track. He hates it so much I know he's internalized it and will repeat it during interstitial moments in his 30's.
Excellent article, I have a new book on my TBR and a new idea to think about for the rest of the day.
Rosen’s reflections on the psychological costs of constant connectivity are insightful, but her analysis suffers from an elite lens that assumes everyone has the time, freedom, and autonomy to embrace boredom. The examples she offers—waiting at stoplights, resisting the urge to check a phone in a doctor’s office, letting children “go outside and play”—all presuppose a level of stability and security that many Americans, particularly working-class families, don’t enjoy. For a single parent juggling jobs or a gig worker navigating multiple platforms to survive, a smartphone isn’t just a toy or crutch—it’s a lifeline.
The romanticism of a “pre-digital” world also reflects a narrow slice of experience—those who had safe neighborhoods, structured school days, and the luxury of analog leisure. That past never belonged to the working poor, and it still doesn’t. Calls to "reclaim idleness" are hollow if you can’t afford unstructured time.
Most tellingly, Rosen fails to hold elite tech architects accountable. The digital attention economy wasn’t built from the bottom up—it was designed and monetized by Silicon Valley insiders, marketed aggressively to parents, and normalized in elite institutions. Yet the burden of reform, in Rosen’s telling, falls disproportionately on individual families—especially parents—rather than the cultural gatekeepers who fueled this transformation.
If we’re serious about reclaiming the human goods of patience, creativity, and reflection, then reform must start with those who set the pace: tech executives, elite educators, and media tastemakers. They’ve long sold distraction as innovation—now they should be the first to unplug.
I think it has to be both - hold tech architects accountable AND also do what we can on an individual level to avoid having our minds (and the minds of our kids) colonized by consumer tech companies that are determined to monetize our attention. That will be easier for some families than others.
Related...what will it take for the tech architects to actually be held accountable? I think it comes down to intense public scrutiny. We need more whistleblowers, lawsuits, and pushback from the public, because big tech is never going to change unless outside forces compel it to. And I think articles like this are one part of the equation because they help spread awareness about what these technologies have stolen from us, which can in turn motivate more pushback against the tech overlords responsible for it.
You can't expect others, especially avaricious "Silicon Valley insiders", to save you from yourself. Don't expect Big Government to help. Only you can save yourself and your children from this doom.
These are some solid points. The commodification and "transhumanizing" of society and life have been arbitrarily imposed by the powers that be on everyone across the board, regardless of socio-economic or individual contexts. Then they pour it on further by claiming it's somehow more just and "equitable" because "everyone can get access to it."
Superb discussion of the importance of "interstitial time". As someone who does not own a cell phone, I enjoy the waiting moments where I simply sit (or stand in line), think, look at people and things around me. It creates snippets of mind silence that help slow down a hurried pace.
Another aspect that could be added to the list of benefits presented here, is the formation of memories. If we spend time simply "being bored", we have time to replay conversations, events, etc. in our mind, a process that gets interrupted if we turn to our phones instead.
And when our kids don't have screens to turn toward in those moments, they learn to take pleasure in these quiet gaps.
As a Boomer, I grew up getting to know boredom in ways described in this piece (I have also read “The Extinction of Experience” which affirmed the interstitial paths on which I walked and daydreamed—and still do, but not without the intentional abandonment of digital distractions).
I grew up in a house that was a quarter mile from a river. Whenever I felt bored or addled or in some state of unresolved conflict (with parents or peers), I would walk to an abandoned ferry landing to sit and watch the quiet flow of that broad and beautiful body of water. Within ten to twenty minutes I was calm and at peace with my imperfect life (not realizing that this routine would be called mindfulness years later). Spending time at the river, living on my grandmother’s Kentucky farm during the summer (with no TV or electronic gadgets), and being exposed to the wild world of fields and animals rooted me inside fallow time that wasn’t measured in minutes or hours.
I appreciate Rosen’s work on why and how to reclaim and re-embody our lives—and to help our children and grandchildren to know boredom as a simple gift that keeps on giving.
This fantastic article put into words my main motivation for switching to a flip phone. During my decade+ of smartphone ownership, I had a nagging sense that my habit of picking up my phone in every spare moment of downtime was destroying something in me, but I couldn't stop doing it. Now that I have a flip phone, the option of scrolling to flee boredom has been taken away (at least while I'm out of the house/away from my laptop!) and it's been a game changer for my creativity, patience, and also my overall mood.
Good for you, Christina. I also made that switch back about 6 years ago. It's a pain occasionally, but I'm happy with my flip phone.
I think life is like lifeguarding: long periods of boredom followed by a few minutes of excitement. Sure, the phone can bring a simulacrum of nearly nonstop excitement, but since you're not paying attention to reality anymore, you'll miss the far better excitement of the real world.
(Not to mention that the human brain is not equipped to handle the non-stop cortisol or dopamine that the phone provides.)
This year for Lent I chose to abstain from cell phone use except for texting and calls...basically use my smart phone like a flip phone. Those six weeks of abstinence allowed me to break the habit of mindlessly picking it up to endlessly scroll. I have my interstitial moments back that used to be sucked up by phone-gazing. It is such a welcome relief to not feel constantly co-opted by my phone. A game-changer for real.
Also, Dr Seuss as usual has the best retort to a child's complaint of boredom (from Oh the Thinks You Can Think):
"You can think up some birds. That's what you can do. You can think about yellow or think about blue."
We now quote this at our kids whenever they say they don't know what to do (they find it highly irritating...but then they do go figure out what to do!)
I was the victim of a mother who uttered that sort of irritating commentary. But she followed it up with the threat of finding me something to do. When under the threat of chores, it's amazing how creative one can become. And it persists even at 75. Last year I attended timber framing school. Hammer, chisels ( big ones) and saws. Fascinating. Smart phones don't help. But precision and trigonometry are both enormously useful. And one must be interstitial to imagine the three dimensional structure being created.
We never introduced movies or screens in car rides. Even longer car rides. We just never did. It meant car rides were louder and more boisterous, especially with 2 boys but now I see our 13 and 16 year old looking out the window when we are on a roadtrip and realize that we gave them a gift. Having the ability to stare out the window seems like nothing too important but really it is. And as our 16 year old learns to drive, I realize that he spent a lot of time observing the road and observing our driving because he didn't have anything else to do in the car. I think that is actually a huge benefit to him.
I got rid of my smartphone a year ago (went to a basic flip phone instead) and everything you describe here is true to my experience of not having a distraction device. My choice to get rid of the phone was driven by my young children. I don't allow them handheld screens so why should I have one. Parenting is modeling. My son has the wildest, most creative imagination, and I can't help but wonder if it has to do with all the unstructured free time he has to fill in his day.
In the car with my daughter yesterday, we were talking about whether there's a correlation between various traits in animals and their lifespan. We spent 4-5 minutes speculating about this, and neither of us once pulled out our smartphones and said, "Hey Google..." (I don't own a smartphone and none of us are accustomed to doing that.)
Instant information and lack of boredom doesn't just make it impossible to daydream. It makes thinking itself harder, since thinking requires time to answer questions you're internally asking yourself. If your response to any question is to immediately ask Google, you've effectively stopped thinking.
We may have more information at our fingertips than ever before, but increasingly we have less knowledge in our brains. And when it comes to thinking (and dreaming and creativity), knowledge is what matters. Good thing we have AI to be creative for us now. :-)
Love love love love love! I read "Anne of Green Gables" last year and was so inspired by Anne Shirley's imagination and ability to daydream that I started going on "Anne Shirley Walks" -- where I would not look at my phone at all and just let my mind wander. I've tried to do this consciously over the last year and it really is great! (Although the temptation to grab your phone is always there, so I'd suggest going on step further and leaving it at home!)
Interesting article. The comments after have convinced me that my next mobile will be a flip phone. My husband and I are both in our sixties. I believe we have hung onto the skill of having patience, and retaining an awareness of anticipation, through vegetable gardening, from seed. So many positives- it is good for us ( eating well and outdoor exercise), good for the planet ( no pesticides, herbicides or air miles), and teaches us how nature operates ( all its glories and irritations).
Every time I see a kid with a phone at a dinner table or a tablet while sitting in a car, I can't help but think how they are being robbed. How will they ever cultivate an imagination or creativity if they are constantly fed? We have a 4-year-old, and raising them without these things is not hard. Our parents did it, and so forth. Parenting is not supposed to be outsourced to devices.
“Instead of the daily encounters that enable communities to sustain a common life, random collections of solitary people are protected from each other.... Rather than connecting in troublesome relationships, they are turning to cyber-companions for frictionless friendship and virtual sex. The contingencies of living in a material world are being swapped for an algorithmic dreamtime. The end-point is self-enclosure in the Matrix – a loss of the definitively human experience of living as a fleshly, mortal creature..... the defiant smile in the face of cruel absurdity, the glance that began a love that changed us forever, a tune it seemed would always be with us, tears in the rain.”
Figuratively speaking, imagine if Newton was too busy watching cat videos on TikTok to contemplate why an apple falls from a tree...
What if they were videos of cats falling out of trees?
Rachmaninoff composed his first piano concerto at age 17. It takes a certain amount of obsessiveness to be able to compose great music like that. Just imagine if that obsessive nature had been exploited by video games instead?
Maybe I wouldn't have failed Cal I twice and Cal 2 twice. It looks like cat videos would have worked in my favor.
yeah he was just "distracted" writing "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John" and other of such sort instead of what he was supposed to do
All of that requires a lot more thought and introspection than watching ca videos!
Maybe I wouldn't have failed Cal I twice and Cal 2 twice. It looks like cat videos would have worked in my favor.
Excellent points! As a 79 year-old with only a flip phone (which I only use when I absolutely need to) I still spend half my time in front of screens. What to do with the other half? Aerobic exercise (with NO electronic distractions), chatting with my wife, reading, working puzzles, listening to music especially the 19th century sort that allows my mind to wander, meditating, napping, chores around the house, petting the cat, looking out the window... and that lifestyle has left me creative to a fault and generally satisfied. So go thou and do likewise!
This reminds me of a man I knew that quit smoking. The watershed moment came when he simply realized "Why do I have to smoke a cigarette on my walk through the parking lot to my car?"
So he stopped, and eventually cut out smoking entirely by first focusing on those interstitial moments.
I had a similar experience when I was addicted to smart phones and social media a few years ago. I found myself grabbing my phone during times when my phone was unnecessary. As a new mom, this often meant my phone was in my hand the moment my son didn't need my immediate attention. What we both lost during that time can never be returned, but I try to give myself grace. I quit, at least.
I'd like to see the return of sacred boredom spaces. Lines, red lights, hospital waiting rooms, restaurants, the bathroom. Like realizing that the afterwork cigarette does not need to happen in the parking lot, I wish we all as a society could agree that some places are sacred, that some places are meant for boredom.
I had a quote on my notebook in junior high. I don't know who said it, probably an offhand remark from a pop idol in a teen magazine, but the quote was "Boredom is an excellent motivator."
I repeat this to my son whenever he complains of boredom. He hates it, he hates it with an intensity that helps me know I am on the right track. He hates it so much I know he's internalized it and will repeat it during interstitial moments in his 30's.
Excellent article, I have a new book on my TBR and a new idea to think about for the rest of the day.
Rosen’s reflections on the psychological costs of constant connectivity are insightful, but her analysis suffers from an elite lens that assumes everyone has the time, freedom, and autonomy to embrace boredom. The examples she offers—waiting at stoplights, resisting the urge to check a phone in a doctor’s office, letting children “go outside and play”—all presuppose a level of stability and security that many Americans, particularly working-class families, don’t enjoy. For a single parent juggling jobs or a gig worker navigating multiple platforms to survive, a smartphone isn’t just a toy or crutch—it’s a lifeline.
The romanticism of a “pre-digital” world also reflects a narrow slice of experience—those who had safe neighborhoods, structured school days, and the luxury of analog leisure. That past never belonged to the working poor, and it still doesn’t. Calls to "reclaim idleness" are hollow if you can’t afford unstructured time.
Most tellingly, Rosen fails to hold elite tech architects accountable. The digital attention economy wasn’t built from the bottom up—it was designed and monetized by Silicon Valley insiders, marketed aggressively to parents, and normalized in elite institutions. Yet the burden of reform, in Rosen’s telling, falls disproportionately on individual families—especially parents—rather than the cultural gatekeepers who fueled this transformation.
If we’re serious about reclaiming the human goods of patience, creativity, and reflection, then reform must start with those who set the pace: tech executives, elite educators, and media tastemakers. They’ve long sold distraction as innovation—now they should be the first to unplug.
I think it has to be both - hold tech architects accountable AND also do what we can on an individual level to avoid having our minds (and the minds of our kids) colonized by consumer tech companies that are determined to monetize our attention. That will be easier for some families than others.
Related...what will it take for the tech architects to actually be held accountable? I think it comes down to intense public scrutiny. We need more whistleblowers, lawsuits, and pushback from the public, because big tech is never going to change unless outside forces compel it to. And I think articles like this are one part of the equation because they help spread awareness about what these technologies have stolen from us, which can in turn motivate more pushback against the tech overlords responsible for it.
You can't expect others, especially avaricious "Silicon Valley insiders", to save you from yourself. Don't expect Big Government to help. Only you can save yourself and your children from this doom.
These are some solid points. The commodification and "transhumanizing" of society and life have been arbitrarily imposed by the powers that be on everyone across the board, regardless of socio-economic or individual contexts. Then they pour it on further by claiming it's somehow more just and "equitable" because "everyone can get access to it."
Superb discussion of the importance of "interstitial time". As someone who does not own a cell phone, I enjoy the waiting moments where I simply sit (or stand in line), think, look at people and things around me. It creates snippets of mind silence that help slow down a hurried pace.
Another aspect that could be added to the list of benefits presented here, is the formation of memories. If we spend time simply "being bored", we have time to replay conversations, events, etc. in our mind, a process that gets interrupted if we turn to our phones instead.
And when our kids don't have screens to turn toward in those moments, they learn to take pleasure in these quiet gaps.
As a Boomer, I grew up getting to know boredom in ways described in this piece (I have also read “The Extinction of Experience” which affirmed the interstitial paths on which I walked and daydreamed—and still do, but not without the intentional abandonment of digital distractions).
I grew up in a house that was a quarter mile from a river. Whenever I felt bored or addled or in some state of unresolved conflict (with parents or peers), I would walk to an abandoned ferry landing to sit and watch the quiet flow of that broad and beautiful body of water. Within ten to twenty minutes I was calm and at peace with my imperfect life (not realizing that this routine would be called mindfulness years later). Spending time at the river, living on my grandmother’s Kentucky farm during the summer (with no TV or electronic gadgets), and being exposed to the wild world of fields and animals rooted me inside fallow time that wasn’t measured in minutes or hours.
I appreciate Rosen’s work on why and how to reclaim and re-embody our lives—and to help our children and grandchildren to know boredom as a simple gift that keeps on giving.
This fantastic article put into words my main motivation for switching to a flip phone. During my decade+ of smartphone ownership, I had a nagging sense that my habit of picking up my phone in every spare moment of downtime was destroying something in me, but I couldn't stop doing it. Now that I have a flip phone, the option of scrolling to flee boredom has been taken away (at least while I'm out of the house/away from my laptop!) and it's been a game changer for my creativity, patience, and also my overall mood.
Good for you, Christina. I also made that switch back about 6 years ago. It's a pain occasionally, but I'm happy with my flip phone.
I think life is like lifeguarding: long periods of boredom followed by a few minutes of excitement. Sure, the phone can bring a simulacrum of nearly nonstop excitement, but since you're not paying attention to reality anymore, you'll miss the far better excitement of the real world.
(Not to mention that the human brain is not equipped to handle the non-stop cortisol or dopamine that the phone provides.)
This year for Lent I chose to abstain from cell phone use except for texting and calls...basically use my smart phone like a flip phone. Those six weeks of abstinence allowed me to break the habit of mindlessly picking it up to endlessly scroll. I have my interstitial moments back that used to be sucked up by phone-gazing. It is such a welcome relief to not feel constantly co-opted by my phone. A game-changer for real.
Also, Dr Seuss as usual has the best retort to a child's complaint of boredom (from Oh the Thinks You Can Think):
"You can think up some birds. That's what you can do. You can think about yellow or think about blue."
We now quote this at our kids whenever they say they don't know what to do (they find it highly irritating...but then they do go figure out what to do!)
I was the victim of a mother who uttered that sort of irritating commentary. But she followed it up with the threat of finding me something to do. When under the threat of chores, it's amazing how creative one can become. And it persists even at 75. Last year I attended timber framing school. Hammer, chisels ( big ones) and saws. Fascinating. Smart phones don't help. But precision and trigonometry are both enormously useful. And one must be interstitial to imagine the three dimensional structure being created.
We never introduced movies or screens in car rides. Even longer car rides. We just never did. It meant car rides were louder and more boisterous, especially with 2 boys but now I see our 13 and 16 year old looking out the window when we are on a roadtrip and realize that we gave them a gift. Having the ability to stare out the window seems like nothing too important but really it is. And as our 16 year old learns to drive, I realize that he spent a lot of time observing the road and observing our driving because he didn't have anything else to do in the car. I think that is actually a huge benefit to him.
Try ultrarunning!
or solo any workout….mine is cycling…..after 1-2 hrs I feel rejuvenated…..
I got rid of my smartphone a year ago (went to a basic flip phone instead) and everything you describe here is true to my experience of not having a distraction device. My choice to get rid of the phone was driven by my young children. I don't allow them handheld screens so why should I have one. Parenting is modeling. My son has the wildest, most creative imagination, and I can't help but wonder if it has to do with all the unstructured free time he has to fill in his day.
In the car with my daughter yesterday, we were talking about whether there's a correlation between various traits in animals and their lifespan. We spent 4-5 minutes speculating about this, and neither of us once pulled out our smartphones and said, "Hey Google..." (I don't own a smartphone and none of us are accustomed to doing that.)
Instant information and lack of boredom doesn't just make it impossible to daydream. It makes thinking itself harder, since thinking requires time to answer questions you're internally asking yourself. If your response to any question is to immediately ask Google, you've effectively stopped thinking.
We may have more information at our fingertips than ever before, but increasingly we have less knowledge in our brains. And when it comes to thinking (and dreaming and creativity), knowledge is what matters. Good thing we have AI to be creative for us now. :-)
Love love love love love! I read "Anne of Green Gables" last year and was so inspired by Anne Shirley's imagination and ability to daydream that I started going on "Anne Shirley Walks" -- where I would not look at my phone at all and just let my mind wander. I've tried to do this consciously over the last year and it really is great! (Although the temptation to grab your phone is always there, so I'd suggest going on step further and leaving it at home!)
Interestingly, I read this in an interstitial moment but it did make me reflect
Interesting article. The comments after have convinced me that my next mobile will be a flip phone. My husband and I are both in our sixties. I believe we have hung onto the skill of having patience, and retaining an awareness of anticipation, through vegetable gardening, from seed. So many positives- it is good for us ( eating well and outdoor exercise), good for the planet ( no pesticides, herbicides or air miles), and teaches us how nature operates ( all its glories and irritations).
Every time I see a kid with a phone at a dinner table or a tablet while sitting in a car, I can't help but think how they are being robbed. How will they ever cultivate an imagination or creativity if they are constantly fed? We have a 4-year-old, and raising them without these things is not hard. Our parents did it, and so forth. Parenting is not supposed to be outsourced to devices.
Excellent essay. Puts me in mind of this John Gray quote featured here in this piece: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts
“Instead of the daily encounters that enable communities to sustain a common life, random collections of solitary people are protected from each other.... Rather than connecting in troublesome relationships, they are turning to cyber-companions for frictionless friendship and virtual sex. The contingencies of living in a material world are being swapped for an algorithmic dreamtime. The end-point is self-enclosure in the Matrix – a loss of the definitively human experience of living as a fleshly, mortal creature..... the defiant smile in the face of cruel absurdity, the glance that began a love that changed us forever, a tune it seemed would always be with us, tears in the rain.”