The Benefits Of Boredom

If there's anything that teachers and students know a lot about, it's being bored.  Bored in class.  Bored in a faculty meeting or all-day PD session.  And usually we think of boredom as a bad thing.  But a recent NYT article suggests that there are some benefits to boredom, as well as the obvious downsides:  "Boredom is more than a mere flagging of interest or a precursor to mischief," notes the piece (here).  "Some experts say that people tune things out for good reasons, and that over time boredom becomes a tool for sorting information — an increasingly sensitive spam filter."  The article explains why people get bored.  There's even mention a 28-question test to see how boredom you are.  But...I'm too bored to find it.