I feel like this is one of those instances that is irritating, because it feels like the researcher is being dismissive of a trend, and is saying everyone else is dumb because they arent a very fancy researcher like themselves. They fail to look past the dumb viral trend into the larger and more complex arguments that make it seem reasonable. They assume the scientific vocabulary is the correct vocaulary, and anyone who uses it incorrectly is clearly uneducated and dumb, rather than realizing that the lay population simply uses words differently than researchers, and the phenomena they talk about are both real and valid.

Boredom is closer to hunger

This is the first thing that catches my attention, because the researcher seems to be implying that boredom is a fairly neutral sensation, like hunger, and the solution is to eat. But this ignores the fact that, in the world of health and fitness, experts in weight management have come to essentially the same conclusion as these boredom advocates - the primary driver of weight gain is improper hunger signalling and emotional eating, and so it can be very useful to intentionally fast (for a reasonable period, like from morning to evening) in order to expose the mind to real hunger occasionally. By feeling hungry and accepting it, we teach the mind that hunger is not an emergency. It doesn’t require immediate eating lest disaster strike. Similarly, intentionally choosing to be bored can help us remember that boredom isn’t an emergency - we can just be bored for a while, and it isn’t the end of the world.

Mindfulness practice, as I understand it, isn’t typically described as uncomfortable.

This person has clearly never engaged in any actual mindfulness practice, which is frequently extremely uncomfortable. In fact, one of the key features of many paths in mindfulness is acceptance of the discomfort you feel during the practice. Like, seriously, you start the timer for a 30 minute sit, and then your cheek starts itching 30 seconds in - 30 minutes of noticing an itch, accepting it, and returning your attention to the sensation of breathing without scratching it is agonizing. But it is also the whole point of a mindfulness practice - learning to be fully present in the moment and to accept what is happening without judgement, including the sensation of itchiness.

The creativity idea has been a bit of a bugbear of mine,

I feel like they are almost intentionally sidestepping around the obvious fact that boredom makes you creative. It doesn’t make you a fantastic once in a generation artist. But if you are grappling with a problem at work, or are trying to figure out where your novel should go, or are unsure what path you should take in life, one of the best strategies is to simply go sit in the woods and do nothing for an hour - just be bored - and your mind will often come up with a solution to exactly the problem you were working on that it couldn’t come up with during your reseach or brainstorming or journalling sessions.

the recent mania for rawdogging, a term that’s come to mean enduring any mundane activity without aids

Still gonna think this is funny

State boredom is the in-the-moment feeling of “I am bored right now.” Functionally what is it doing? It is meant to signal to you that what you’re doing right now isn’t working. You need to do something else.

I felt State Boredom while reading this article. So I stopped and am gonna do something else. WIN!