Why this Harvard professor says boredom might be the key to happiness

Every time you wait for a lift or in a queue, the first impulse is to whip out your phone and scroll, swipe, or stream. Why do we do it every time? What does it take to simply do nothing? Just in time, when this peculiar behaviour has been normalised globally, Harvard professor Arthur C Brooks has a revolutionary prescription for happiness – boredom.

“You need to be bored,” Brooks insisted. “You will have less meaning and you will be more depressed if you are never bored. I mean, it couldn’t be clearer.”

In a video posted on the YouTube channel of Harvard Business Review, the social scientist and author of From Strength to Strength argues that our unease with boredom is at the heart of modern mental health crisis. According to him, when we eliminate idle time, we also eliminate opportu