A Tactical Guide to Social Media Use

Regain your focus, be more present, avoid Dopaminergic Downregulation

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." - Dorothy Parker

Gentlemen. Hot take: Boredom is good for you.

This shouldn’t be a hot take, this is a fact Boredom breeds creativity. It is the starting point from which you can explore your innate curiosities. Lack of stimuli gives you the headspace needed to generate a strong sense of self.

I recently watched Battle Royale, a Japanese movie filmed in 1999 (If you haven’t explored Eastern Asian cinema now is a good time to do so). Two of the main characters got expelled from school for stabbing their teacher. They subsequently got banished to their rooms.

What did they do with their free time? One of them played guitar while the other read a book. Think about that. These two guys are legit delinquents and they killed time by pursuing musical and intellectual advancement. Compare this to what a modern-day delinquent would do with ample time on his hands. He’d probably alternate between Pornhub, Fortnite, and beheading videos on LiveLeak.

This is what Zuckerberg took from us

I bring this up to show you that boredom used to be a pathway to personal development. Leave somebody in a room for long enough and they’ll find a (hopefully) constructive way to entertain themselves. Ask your parents what they did when they were bored as a kid. It was probably one of the following:

• Read an encyclopedia

• Learn how to crochet

• Play the drums

• Hunt squirrels

• Disassemble & Reassemble the family car

• Count to 1,000 in multiples of 8

Are some of these arbitrary? Sure. But they all required some level of deliberate attention & practice. A little bit of cognitive elbow grease.

If you’re reading this, it means you have some semblance of attention span so I assume you grew up without an Ipad.