Role of Context in Daily Boredom Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Daily Diary Study

Boredom is typically an experience from which most people want to escape. However, what happens when external constraints are placed on people’s lives such as living through a pandemic and having to follow lockdown protocols? How does this affect their boredom experiences? In this 7-day daily diary study with 289 adults from the United States, we empirically tested how the changes in people’s daily lives brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically, the amount of time they spent at home and the amount of time they spent alone, influenced the level of boredom they experienced on a given day. We also tested how the changes in people’s daily meaning in life, which had also been impacted by the pandemic, influenced people’s daily boredom experiences. Results from multilevel modeling showed that on days when people spent more time alone and experienced lower daily meaning in life, they experienced higher levels of boredom. However, the amount of time spent at home did not predict daily boredom. This study contributes to boredom literature by highlighting the impact that contextual factors have on people’s boredom experiences. Typically, psychological research on boredom has focused on the characteristics of a specific activity that people are engaged in, or by their dispositional propensity to feeling bored. Understanding the role of people’s contexts can help us devise nuanced and effective boredom coping interventions.