Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom

by James Danckert, John D. Eastwood Narrated by Liam Gerrard

Overview

We avoid boredom at all costs. It makes us feel restless and agitated. Desperate for something to do, we play games on our phones, retie our shoes, or even count ceiling tiles. And if we escape it this time, eventually it will strike again. But what if we listened to boredom instead of banishing it?



Psychologists James Danckert and John Eastwood contend that boredom isn't bad for us. It's just that we do a bad job of heeding its guidance. When we're bored, our minds are telling us that whatever we are doing isn't working-we're failing to satisfy our basic psychological need to be engaged and effective. Too many of us respond poorly. We become prone to accidents, risky activities, loneliness, and ennui, and we waste ever more time on technological distractions. But, Danckert and Eastwood argue, we can let boredom have the opposite effect, motivating the change we need. The latest research suggests that an adaptive approach to boredom will help us avoid its troubling effects and, through its reminder to become aware and involved, boredom might lead us to live fuller lives.



Out of My Skull combines scientific findings with everyday observations to explain an experience we'd like to ignore, but from which we have a lot to learn. Boredom evolved to help us. It's time we gave it a chance.

Editorial Reviews

JULY 2020 - AudioFile

Liam Gerrard's chipper performance would seem at odds with the subject of Danckert and Eastwood's audiobook. Yet, it's perfect. In this wide-ranging discussion on boredom, Gerrard's tone captures the authors’ enthusiasm for a topic most would ignore. Listeners are given background on why people experience boredom. The discussion is philosophically engaging. Is boredom the expectation of stimulation that hasn't happened yet? How does boredom relate to pain? Why would people choose to electrocute themselves to avoid boredom? Do creatives do their best work to stave off boredom? Thoughtful, intellectual, yet accessible, Gerrard creates the environment of a master class, his voice projecting intelligence and interest as he takes listeners on a journey that's anything but dull. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

The Times - Michael Odell

Offers a concise and actually quite stimulating history of boredom.

Mark Fenske

Few have done as much as James Danckert and John Eastwood to bring boredom out of the scientific shadows and inspire researchers to give it the consideration it deserves. Out of My Skull is a gift for the rest of us—accessible, engaging, and enlightening.

New Yorker - Margaret Talbot

Danckert and Eastwood urge us to resist the temptation to ‘just kick back on the couch with a bag of chips’ and instead to find activities that impart a sense of agency and reorient us toward our goals.

The Guardian - Steven Poole

[A] highly interesting and suggestive book on the analysis of boredom from a strictly psychological perspective.

Heather Lench

An inspiring look at the nature of boredom—what causes it, how we deal with it, and how it impacts our lives. Danckert and Eastwood explore some of the most pressing problems of our time, including solitary confinement, delinquency, internet addiction, and war, challenging us to consider what boredom can tell us about our world and ourselves.

inews - Susie Mesure

The book could not be more timely.

Washington Monthly - Eric Cortellessa

Offers an essential insight. Readers will leave with a greater understanding of what boredom is and what we can do with it. More than anything, it explains why boredom is something we shouldn’t fight so much as listen to.

Science - Erin Westgate

Boredom is often inescapable these days, as social distancing guidelines keep many of us at home…[This] is an engaging and timely read that is anything but boring.

Peter Toohey

Boredom bothers nearly everyone, but who likes admitting that? Take heart: James Danckert and John Eastwood demonstrate how boredom, though unpleasant, can spur us into productive action. Out of My Skull just might make you feel better about this very human failing—I know it did for me.

Colin Ellard

Provocative and timely, cheeky and erudite, this book will bore no one.

Inside Story - Nick Haslam

[A] fascinating book…An extended meditation on boredom as feeling and motive, as source of misery and meaning in life, as social pathology and technological predicament…An enjoyable and enlightening read that explores the many dimensions of boredom deftly but deeply.

Idler

Explore[s] what boredom really is and, crucially, whether it might serve a purpose.

Joshua Coleman

Out of My Skull is a highly entertaining, compelling, and thought-provoking read on the subject of boredom. I learned a lot, and so will you.

JULY 2020 - AudioFile

Liam Gerrard's chipper performance would seem at odds with the subject of Danckert and Eastwood's audiobook. Yet, it's perfect. In this wide-ranging discussion on boredom, Gerrard's tone captures the authors’ enthusiasm for a topic most would ignore. Listeners are given background on why people experience boredom. The discussion is philosophically engaging. Is boredom the expectation of stimulation that hasn't happened yet? How does boredom relate to pain? Why would people choose to electrocute themselves to avoid boredom? Do creatives do their best work to stave off boredom? Thoughtful, intellectual, yet accessible, Gerrard creates the environment of a master class, his voice projecting intelligence and interest as he takes listeners on a journey that's anything but dull. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2020-03-15
If you can read the signs, boredom might just be your friend.

Boredom, note the authors, betrays a fundamental human need to be engaged with the world and to have agency in our actions. Taking a psychological approach to a universal condition, Danckert, a cognitive neuroscientist, and Eastwood, a clinical psychologist, seek to unify a fragmented area of inquiry and provide a framework for further study. The authors loosely define boredom as having the desire to do something but being unmoved by the options open to you in the moment. It is a subject full of both obvious and counterintuitive features (a little obvious in some of the authors’ discussions). Boredom is sending us a message, write the authors, and it’s anticipatory, a call to act. But boredom is biological, and our strategies for dealing with it are subject to paradox: “Our drive to avoid the distress of being bored can lead us to some dark places”—e.g., internet addiction and isolation. The authors claim that research suggests boredom is both a transient state and a disposition, that some of us are more prone to boredom than others, and that age is one of many factors—again, rather self-evident. While there is much of value in their presentation and the analyses of the work of other researchers, complete with a bevy of potentially useful insights, lay readers will have to hack through thickets of repetition to find it. With minor variations, Danckert and Eastwood tend to establish the same definitions and make the same points over and over. This is all clearly fascinating to the authors, who demonstrate their enthusiasm, and doubtless to colleagues involved in the subject, but one can’t escape the feeling that this entire book could have been distilled quite effectively into 50 pages.

Sound research and informed speculation best suited to an academic audience. (6 photos; 2 illustrations)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177971117
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	06/09/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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