Trading Boredom for Cognitive Overload

What’s the Latest Development?

Corporate anthropologist Genevieve Bell argues that technology and constant connectivity offer us the promise of never being bored again. Smartphones mean we will never be anywhere without something to do. “We have introduced a whole lot of devices that prevent us from ever being bored…every physical space we might go is now jammed to the rafters with things demanding our attention. We might have traded boredom for suddenly being overloaded.” 

What’s the Big Idea?

In the latest on the ongoing “Are gadgets stealing our humanity?” debate, Bell was among the speakers at a TEDxSydney conference, where the benefits of technology were contrasted against its costs. Prominent technology writer Nicholas Carr recounted how got his first PC back in the 80s and was an avid net user until “a few years ago, I noticed some disturbing changes in the way my mind worked. I was losing the ability to concentrate.”