Disaster movies like "Contagion" and "Outbreak" depicted pandemics as dramatic, even action-packed. It turns out the opposite is true: a nascent real-life pandemic problem, it seems, is that Americans are experiencing an uptick in boredom. In June, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard released "The US National Pandemic Emotional Impact Report," which found that 53% of Americans surveyed reported being more bored than before the advent of COVID-19.
Perhaps that's why many are disregarding rules about quarantines and crowds as they go off in search of fun; indeed, a July study just published suggested boredom might be undermining health precautions such as social distancing and self-isolating. Another recent study indicated that Americans were drinking more alcohol during the pandemic; it was seen as a way to cope with boredom. "We are entering a new age of boredom," Wired magazine opined, adding, "almost none of the sources of fulfillment we relied on . . . [in the past] are easily accessible."
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