It amazes me when people proclaim that they are bored. Actually, it amazes me that I am ever bored, or that any of us are. With so much to occupy us these days, boredom should be a relic of a bygone age – an age devoid of the internet, social media, multi-channel TV, 24-hour shopping, multiplex cinemas, game consoles, texting and whatever other myriad possibilities are available these days to entertain us.
每當有人對我說他感到無聊時，我都很驚訝。事實上，使我感到驚訝的是，我曾經感受過的無聊，每一個人都有。如今我們的生活被太多事情占據了，無聊感應該是過去那個年代的遺物了，過去那個沒有互聯網，社交媒體，電視頻道，通宵購物，多廳電影院，游戲機，短信的年代，也沒有現在這么多娛樂節目的年代。
Yet despite the plethora of high-intensity entertainment constantly at our disposal, we are still bored. Up to half of us are “often bored” at home or at school, while more than two- thirds of us are chronically bored at work. We are bored by paperwork, by the commute and by dull meetings. TV is boring, as is Facebook and other social media. We spend our weekends at dull parties, watching tedious films or listening to our spouses drone on about their day. Our kids are bored – bored of school, of homework and even of school holidays.
然而，盡管我們總是處在無數的極其有趣娛樂活動中，我們還是會感到無聊。高達二分之一的人表示，待在家里或學校里會經常感到無聊，三分之二的人表示工作就會使他們無聊。我們厭倦了文書工作、厭倦了上下班一成不變的路線、厭倦了枯燥乏味的工作會議。看電視是很無聊，同樣的，面書之類的其他社交媒體也很無聊。周末，我們去參加無聊的派對，觀看乏味的電影或者是聽另一半嘮嘮叨叨的說著他們自己的事。我們的孩子也很無聊——他們厭倦學校，厭倦作業，甚至放假也使他們無聊。
There are a number of explanations for our ennui. This, in fact, is part of the problem – we are overstimulated. The more entertained we are the more entertainment we need in order to feel satisfied . The more we fill our world with fast-moving, high-intensity, ever-changing stimulation, the more we get used to that and the less tolerant we become of lower levels.
無聊的事情總很多。實際上，我們的部分問題在于——過度興奮。我們越興奮就越需要更大的興奮，才能使我們感到自我滿足。我們不斷感受到快速、強烈、多變的興奮，越來越習慣于這種興奮，才越加不能接受這種興奮感稍有退卻。
Our attention spans are now thought to be less than that of a goldfish – eight seconds
現在，有人認為我們注意力的持續時間甚至不如8秒記憶的金魚。
Thus slower-paced activities, such as reading reports, sitting in meetings, attending lectures or studying for exams, bore us because we are accustomed to faster-paced amusements.
因此，閱讀報告，參加會議，聆聽講座，備戰考試，這些慢節奏的行為總是讓我們很乏味，我們已經習慣了快節奏的娛樂行為。
Our attention spans are now thought to be less than that of a goldfish (eight seconds). We are hard-wired to seek novelty, which produces a hit of dopamine, that feel-good chemical, in our brains. As soon as a new stimulus is noticed, however, it is no longer new, and after a while it bores us. To get that same pleasurable dopamine hit we seek fresh sources of distraction.
現在，有人認為我們注意力的持續時間比金魚(8秒)還短.大腦中有一種能夠產生愉悅感的化學物質多巴胺，我們本能的去尋找新奇的事物以刺激腦內多巴胺的生成。一旦發現了新的刺激，它就不再新奇，過一會兒我們就開始厭倦了。我們分散注意力去尋找其他新鮮感的來源，來維持多巴胺帶來的那份愉悅感。
Our increasing reliance on screentime is also to blame. Although we seem to live in a varied and exciting world with a wealth of entertainment at our fingertips, this is actually the problem. Many of these amusements are obtained in remarkably similar ways – via our fingers. We spend much of our work life now tapping away at our keyboard. We then look for stimulation (watching movies, reading books, catching the news, interacting with friends) via the internet or our phone, which means more tapping. On average we spend six to seven hours in front of our phone, tablet, computer and TV screens every day.
我們與日俱增的屏幕依賴也值得批判。真正的問題在于，我們只是看上去生活在一個多彩，激情四射的世界里，動動手指就能帶來無數樂趣。收獲這一類樂趣有個明顯的共同點——僅需動動手指。工作中，我們大部分時間都在鍵盤上打字。隨后，我們又用手機或者網絡尋求快樂(電影，看書，看新聞，朋友互動)，意味著目視屏幕，敲擊鍵盤的時間更多了。平均下來，我們每天會花6到7小時的時間在手機、平板、電腦和電視的屏幕上。
All this is simply becoming boring. Instead of performing varied activities that engage different neural systems (sport, knitting, painting, cooking, etc) to relieve our tedium, we fall back on the same screen-tapping schema for much of our day. The irony is that while our mobile devices should allow us to fill every moment, our means of obtaining that entertainment has become so repetitive and routine that it’s a source of boredom in itself.
所有這些很容易就變得無聊了。我們退回到了整天用觸摸屏幕的方式來釋放無聊的情緒，而不是去參加各種需要運用到我們神經系統不同部位的活動(運動、手工、繪畫、烹飪等等)。諷刺的是，我們的移動設備本是充實我們生活每一個瞬間的，但是我們獲取快樂的方式卻變得如此一成不變，這或許就是乏味它本身的來源。
Does any of this matter? Research suggests that chronic boredom is responsible for a profusion of negative outcomes such as overeating, gambling, truancy, antisocial behaviour, drug use, accidents, risk taking and much more. We need less, not more, stimulation and novelty.
這種狀態會有影響么?有研究表明長期感到無聊會引發暴飲暴食、賭博、逃學、反社會、吸毒、引發事故、追求風險等等，很多負面的行為。簡單點，我們不需要那么多興奮和獵奇。
It seems paradoxical, but feeling bored in the short term will make us less bored in the long term.
它看上去像是悖論，但是我們在眼前的生活中堅持枯燥，是為了整個人生中少一些空虛。