Sometimes, Learning Begins With Being Bored

At 11 years old, I refused a smartphone—not because my parents said no, but because I was afraid I would become addicted.I couldn't really explain my hesitation at the time. I simply watched people my age—and often twice or three times my age—reach for their phones whenever they encountered boredom, loneliness, or discomfort. Something about that dependence felt wrong.Only years later did I realize what my decision gave me. Boredom. That decision may have spared me from becoming part of what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls “the anxious generation.”Today, boredom has become an endangered part of childhood. In May 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services warned that children spend about eight hours daily on screens, which is nearly as much time as they spend sleeping or in school. Growing evidence also links excessive screen use to anxiety, depression, and developmental challenges.As Jonathan Haidt argues in The Anxious Generation, “The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently with themselves when they are alone.”Boredom is educational. Our worsening inability to sit with ourselves is changing how children learn.Middle school is awkward by design. It forces students to navigate uncomfortable conversations, unfamiliar classmates, and moments of silence. But without a phone, I did not have the “social crutch,” as many call it, to be sucked into. I had nowhere to escape.When the conversation stalled, I had to restart it. When I felt uncomfortable, I had to observe, listen, and engage instead of disappearing into a screen.Body language, eye contact, conversational rhythm, and social awareness develop only through repetition. The erosion of these social skills is increasingly visible in classrooms. In a 2024 survey by the Education Week Research Center, 62% of teachers, principals, and district leaders said students’ ability to make and maintain eye contact had worsened over the past decade. One in four described the decline as “much worse.”While classmates reached for their phones, I picked up another biography from the library, motivated by the satisfaction of finishing one and starting the next. Free time during class became an opportunity to finish homework early, leaving afternoons for riding my bike, playing driveway volleyball until sunset, or diving into whatever subject had captured my curiosity.With fewer distractions, I felt my attention span actually expand. I would spend hours reading, researching, or sewing quilts without constant stimulation. The effort became rewarding in itself.Educational psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, creators of the “Self-Determination Theory,” argue that students develop the deepest and most persistent motivation when learning is driven by curiosity and autonomy rather than by external rewards.These are precisely the habits schools should hope to cultivate: sustained attention, independent thinking, and the ability to learn without constant external stimulation.Boredom gave me the opportunity to develop those habits naturally, and, looking back as a college student, I realize how unusual my experience has become. Luckily, however, schools are recognizing and beginning to respond.A 2024 study at Auburn University found that a cellphone ban at a high school in Alabama improved classroom engagement and strengthened students’ face-to-face interactions. Teachers reported that students showed greater interest in class and collaborated better with peers. Students themselves reported improved focus, better grades, increased social interaction, fewer fights, and less cheating.Technology can be an extraordinary tool, but such tools can be detrimental when they replace experiences children need to mature. The phone bans restore uninterrupted time, accomplishing something technology cannot.For generations, boredom cultivated curiosity. Now, algorithms supply constant entertainment, filling any and every gap. Boredom taught children to initiate conversations before retreating into unread group chats, work to solve problems before opening a search engine, and discover interests before platforms decided what should capture their attention.A child’s discomfort in moments of boredom has coincided with rising anxiety, shrinking attention spans, and weaker social confidence. A 2024 study of students aged 13 to 16 in the United Kingdom found that adolescents with problematic smartphone use were significantly more likely to experience moderate to severe anxiety than their peers. Researchers also found that as problematic smartphone use increased over time, so did symptoms of anxiety, depression, and poor sleep, suggesting that unhealthy relationships with smartphones may compound mental health challenges.If we hope to reverse those trends, restoring phone-free childhood experiences is a logical place to begin.Perhaps the greatest gift adults can give children today is not another educational app or productivity tool, but enough uninterrupted time to become curious, resilient, and socially confident on their own.Sometimes, learning begins with being bored.