We think social media has changed childhood and adolescence for the worse, so much so that it constitutes a “great rewiring of childhood.” Beginning in the 1990s, a childhood based heavily on outdoor play began to fade away and was replaced by a phone-based childhood in the early 2010s, when teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones.

Can we

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the thing about boredom is that it sneaks up in places where we used to expect it. car rides. long walks. the slow parts of a meal when no one’s talking. but now we’ve armored ourselves against it with screens, headphones, and endless micro-distractions. the second boredom shows its face, we swat it away. it makes sense: boredom feels... See more

Boredom has a purpose. To understand and harness it, we need to give our minds more opportunities to experience it. In the rest of this post, I will explore the many ways our efforts to conquer boredom through technology have produced unintended consequences, including the near-total capture of our attention, the death of daydreaming, and the end... See more