Raw Dogging Boredom: Embracing the Unplugged Experience

Introduction

You may have heard, recently, about a new(ish) Tik Tok trend called raw-dogging boredom. You can read about it here. Here is my take on it, as a professional psychologist.

In a nutshell, "rawdogging boredom" is an intentional practice of being bored without distractions. Many people in the modern world feel increasingly like they can't tolerate boredom. They find themselves picking up their phone all the time. Even I'm guilty of this. I often spend my lunch breaks at work alone. This is intentional - my work is very social in nature - I'm interacting and talking to people all day. But I'm an introvert, so I often like to use my lunch hour (or at least part of it) to recharge. Typically, I will walk around outside. Sometimes I will take my car to a shady spot and just sit in my car. I notice, though, often than when I'm walking or sitting, I scroll my phone. I have to make an intentional choice not to do this. Without the intention, almost automatically, I'll pick it up.

And I come from an early millenial generation. I was raised during a time (the 90s) when we often had to entertain ourselves and endure boredom. Like all the generations before us, we found stuff to do. However, my generation is the last generation that is not a digital native. That is, every generation after mine was born into a primarily digital world/culture. They have always been surrounded by immediate access to digital material, and that material, over the last 2 decades, has gotten increasingly better at capturing and keeping our attention.

The "rawdogging boredom" trend, then, is an active revolt against modern youth's perception that they don't know how to endure a world without immediate access to high stimulus and high reward activity. And I'm all for it.

There's some real science behind this too. I won't review all the studies, but there are numerous ones that show the benefits of boredom. For example, one study showed that when bored, people are more likely to engage in or at least think of humanitarian acts. After or during a period of boredom, people are also more likely to be creative/innovative. People are also more self-reflective, which often leads to personal growth. Other studies have compared modern to older generations, and their expeience of bordeom. Modern generations experience boredom in far more negative terms, and they tolerate it for shorter periods of time than older generations. Many studies also show that our phones are incredibly distracting. Even having them on our person (as opposed to put away and no where close) increases our distraction (again, there are studies that have shown this, testing attention comparing people who have their phones on a desk beside them, versus in bag beside them, versus in another room).

So, there is defintiely something to this trend. And something valuable in people making an effort to learn how to just be bored, and be okay with that.

Still, it may not be necssary to "raw dog" boredom for 2 straight hours as a challenge. Historically, most people endured 15-30 minutes at a time of regular boredom before they found something to do. Typically, it was those minutes of self-reflection that led people to identity and experiment with things to do. In other words, they had to come up with the boredom busters on their own. They couldn't just pick up a device and let the device give them all the stimulus (and more) they need.

So, here's what I recommend:

Do

• Challenge yourself to about 15 minutes of "quiet/alone" time. Use that time to 1) just endure the solitude and boredom and 2) to contemplate what you'll do after that period to pass the rest of your time.

• After the alone/quiet time, and after you've identified something to do, do it for about 45 minutes. That 45 minutes is rather arbitraty, just to get us up to an hour-long period of separating from our devices and from constant dopamine fix of digital media. You can go longer if you want, or shorter on some days.

  • The rules are, though, that the thing to do should NOT include work, screens, devices, multitasking, or socialization. It should focus on doing ONE thing and doing it more or less by yourself. This doesn't mean you have to be physically alone while you do it. If you want to sit at a table and craft while your family watches TV nearby, that's fine (as long as the family TV doesn't distract you too much). If you want a friend to hang out with you and you both just sit and draw, without interacting much, that's fine too. We are a social species, and it is okay to still want to be around others. However, the point of the activity should not be to socialize. It should be focused on other things.

• Aim to try this challenge around 3 to 4 days per week.

• Allow yourself outside of the challenge time to enjoy socialization, preferably non-digitally. Socialziation is important to us as a species. Digital socialization can be great too - in fact, it achieves pretty much all the same things as IRL (in real life) socialization. But, since we are making an effort to disconnect a bit from the stimuli of our phones and of screens, IRL socialization can also be something you set as priority.

Don't

• As mentioned above, don't let yourself do "work" during this time. Of course, if someone happens to decide to pay you for something you create from your activies, I won't tell you to deny that money. But, the primarily purpose of the activity should be the activity itself, not a financial/economic incentive for it. Further, if some of the "work" involves skill-buidling or other types of focused practice on a skill, that is okay too. That is an "allowable" form of work. But, again, the purpose of the activity should be personal, not economic.

• Don't live stream it, at least not every time. Maybe you decide to live stream 1 or 2, just to encourage others to try, but using a device to live stream your activity only means you might be distracted by said device, or tempted to pick it up. This leads to the next point:

• Don't keep your device nearby. Put it in another room entirley, if you can. Shut if off completely. Don't just put it on DND (Do Not Disturb), but shut it down. Obviously, there are exceptions to this. If you're a parent and need to maintain a line of communcation with your child, or vice versa, or if you're "on call" for your job, then leave it on, but still put it away as much as you can.

I have ADHD, I can't do this...

Not to be insensitive, but yes you can. ADHD hasn't been around as a diagnosis forever, but the type of brain that we now call ADHD has been around forever - for as long as humans have been around. Our ancestors with ADHD brains found things to do way before there were screens. Go read Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn and you'll see. Those boys probably had ADHD, and they were heroes.

But, if you're particularly impulsive, and there's a chance you might get yourself into trouble if you're too bored (like Tom and Huck did at times, for example), then maybe utilize an accountability partner of some kind of your activities. Someone who will tell you, "Idk dude, that seems kinda risky" and who can talk you down from some of your crazier/riskier ideas. Like, don't go invest your life savings in bitcoin or be like, "I wonder how many beers it would take for me to pass out," or say, "Let's borrow the neighbor's cat and see how long it takes them to notice it's missing."

Find a buddy (or sibling, or parent, or anyone) you can trust to talk you down when you need.

Can you give me some ideas of good boredom busters?

• Nature-focused activities:

  • Walking or hiking in nearby parks.

  • Observing wildlife and practicing mindfulness in nature.

  • Drawing wildlife or nature

• Creative endeavors:

  • Draw, paint, sculpt, create art.

  • Craft.

  • Learn an instrument. Make music. Compose a symphony.

  • Sing.

  • Build furniture.

  • Engineer a Rube Goldberg machine

• Physical activities:

  • Yoga

  • Run

  • Weight-training or body-weight exercises

  • Climb a tree (carefully)

• Intellectual pursuits (non digital):

  • Read fiction

  • Go to the library

    • Study a topic of interest

    • Nerd out

  • Go to a bookstore

  • Outline a book idea or comic

• Mindful practices:

  • Meditate

  • Journaling

  • Deep breathing

This article uses no AI. Dr. Steadman wrote all the words. The image is courtesy of Unsplash, a collection of human-generated photos for free use.