We built machines first to support us, then to ease our lives. Now, that shift has moved almost entirely toward entertaining us endlessly. In the process, we have reached a point where it has become necessary to relearn a fundamental human skill and to reimagine our basics.
Going back to the mid-20th century, boredom was “the thing”. Our bored ancestors had time, silence, and mental peace. Long evenings with nothing scheduled. Idle moments with no prior consent or commitment. Discomfort that forced the mind to wander. That boredom was not useless. It was productively empty.
Those slow gaps encouraged people to reimagine, reflect, and create. They were not a vacuum. They lived through. Boredom was not a problem to fix, but a simple part of life.
As of now, we are living in an age where boredom is barely…………………………..
Before going any further, notice something.
That small twitch. The urge to scroll. To find the next snack of excitement. The next bite of a YouTube Short or a TikTok.
The deliberate pause I took above was intentional. It matches the rough span of sustained attention from Nielsen usability studies. UX research shows that around 10 seconds is often the upper limit before a reader’s attention drifts and the urge to interact or scroll takes over. Eye-tracking research from the Nielsen Norman Group supports this, showing that 57% of viewing time happens above the fold, and 74% within the first two screenfuls. In simple terms, most readers decide whether to stay or escape almost immediately.
So if you are here, still reading, you are already doing something increasingly rare.
This is the quiet death of boredom.
To fill this urge for the next bite, a short video is always ready. Cleaning horse hooves. A carpet going from dark brown to bright in seconds. A knife cutting perfectly through soap. Videos with no story, no lesson, no dialogue. Just a satisfying completion.
Even while standing in queues. With a few minutes before lunch, breakfast, or dinner. While waiting for a bus, we are constantly taking these bites.
These bite sized atomic bites, these snacks. They are not accidental. They are constantly manufactured by algorithms that we train every day. Every time we take a bite, we teach the system what flavor to serve next. And the manufacturers keep experimenting. New flavors. Slight variations. Stronger hits.
Some of these bites are not even edible. Not nourishing. Not meant for our well-being. But who cares? It is just a small bite-sized piece, and we keep on feeding. Have you ever wondered why some applications call it a “news feed”? A feed exists to keep something eating. It serves content in a steady flow, one portion after another, so attention never fully rests.
And slowly, without clear consent or even awareness, we become addicted.
So how should we change? Should we stop moving toward technology?
Or should we continue our journey and simply see how it goes?
Technology is not a detour; it’s the road we are already on.
So, I want to open up this conversation, suggesting my opinion, as we need to start building algorithms that do not hand out snacks every time we feel the urge to eat. Systems that recognize when a user is reacting, not choosing. Platforms that understand the difference between feeding attention and nourishing it.
We are already close to a “bazinga” moment. Where technology is powerful enough to model human behavior in real time. At that level, algorithms should care less about capturing the next second of attention and more about supporting long-term human well-being.
The algorithms and models have to understand not the behaviors and analyze them for their own good but to understand the long-term expectations of the user and analyzing behaviors to support that goal. Otherwise, we are building systems which will train human to be reactive, not to responsive.
This means research. Not just on engagement, but on cognitive health. Not just on retention, but on reflection. Systems that occasionally slow the feed. Introduce friction. Encourage pauses. Offer fewer snacks and more meaningful meals.
Not to control users.
But to respect them.
If technology is going to shape how we think, then it must also take responsibility for how we live.
Kalana Geethmal – Solutions Engineer