very dawn of the digital age. “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” he wrote, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” Lord knows, in the age of Twitter we’ve stopped worrying about such minor details. Nothing important to communicate, a cynic might observe, is not only no impediment. It seems to be the whole point.
Before The Experiment, I hadn’t given much thought to my own thaasophobic tendencies. Now that I have, I realize I am not necessarily typical. Not all of us feel the need to download a digital copy of Wuthering Heights upon hearing the announcement of a ten-minute track delay. I did exactly this the day I got my iPhone, and I’m humiliated to report that it delivered a thrill that was borderline erotic in its intensity. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be bored again!” I exulted. You could practically hear the overture to Gone With the Wind over the hissing of the air brakes.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think the App Store is among the greatest secular miracles of our age—and when I read somewhere in the second trimester of The Experiment about its billionth-download milestone, I paused for a moment of silence and longing. But I am reluctantly mindful of Thoreau’s warning that “our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things.” Not that I ever really confused my virtual Zippo lighter for the torch of learning or anything, but the human capacity to be seduced and sedated by bright, shiny objects should never be underestimated. The Canarsie Indians who sold Manhattan for $24 worth of trinkets are still our spiritual brothers.
When my own trinkets were taken away, I whiled away many an abruptly empty hour considering how the flight from boredom, so-called, has been systematically impoverishing all our imaginations. I’d certainly taken the “boredom defense” at face value, accepting uncritically that my children “needed” stimulation; that without it they’d be deprived—and, by implication, potentially destructive or intrusive. Like so many other modern parents, I’d taken it as a given that even tiny babies experience boredom. I never stopped to ask myself exactly what that meant. Like, when a three-month-old watches her fist as if it were the latest episode of Scrubs , what on earth can boredom mean?
I recalled in high-resolution, cringe-making detail how unhesitatingly I’d diagnosed a case of premature boredom when Anni was that age and had trouble settling for naps. The interior of her crib must be too dull for her twelve-week-old sensibilities, I decided—its raucous profusion of music boxes, mobiles, activity toys, and stuffed animals ranging from teddy bears to stingrays (seriously, the kid had a stuffed stingray) notwithstanding. I was encouraged in this delusion by Penelope Leach, whose book Your Baby and Child was pretty much The Dummy’s Guide to Motherhood of its day.
Leach’s view was that “fussy” babies, as she called them, were simply understimulated babies trying to communicate a need for better programming options. She was big on DIY boredom-busters, such as mobiles of dangling tea bags and Christmas balls and teaspoons, or “whatever is to hand.”
I made one out of child-safe fishing tackle that would have put Alexander Calder to shame ... in so many ways. I staged mini-puppet shows, and worked for hours creating entertaining balloon faces. My masterwork—a yellow skull-shaped number grimacing as if from sleep deprivation—was something of a self-portrait.
Baby Anni’s resolute failure to be amused by any of it suggested (to me and to Penelope, anyhow) that I simply wasn’t trying hard enough. Leach hinted openly that difficult babies were probably super-intelligent. It took me some months to wake up to the fact that, regardless, she was also super-exhausted. She didn’t need more entertainment. She needed less. Like mother,
Before The Experiment, I hadn’t given much thought to my own thaasophobic tendencies. Now that I have, I realize I am not necessarily typical. Not all of us feel the need to download a digital copy of Wuthering Heights upon hearing the announcement of a ten-minute track delay. I did exactly this the day I got my iPhone, and I’m humiliated to report that it delivered a thrill that was borderline erotic in its intensity. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be bored again!” I exulted. You could practically hear the overture to Gone With the Wind over the hissing of the air brakes.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think the App Store is among the greatest secular miracles of our age—and when I read somewhere in the second trimester of The Experiment about its billionth-download milestone, I paused for a moment of silence and longing. But I am reluctantly mindful of Thoreau’s warning that “our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things.” Not that I ever really confused my virtual Zippo lighter for the torch of learning or anything, but the human capacity to be seduced and sedated by bright, shiny objects should never be underestimated. The Canarsie Indians who sold Manhattan for $24 worth of trinkets are still our spiritual brothers.
When my own trinkets were taken away, I whiled away many an abruptly empty hour considering how the flight from boredom, so-called, has been systematically impoverishing all our imaginations. I’d certainly taken the “boredom defense” at face value, accepting uncritically that my children “needed” stimulation; that without it they’d be deprived—and, by implication, potentially destructive or intrusive. Like so many other modern parents, I’d taken it as a given that even tiny babies experience boredom. I never stopped to ask myself exactly what that meant. Like, when a three-month-old watches her fist as if it were the latest episode of Scrubs , what on earth can boredom mean?
I recalled in high-resolution, cringe-making detail how unhesitatingly I’d diagnosed a case of premature boredom when Anni was that age and had trouble settling for naps. The interior of her crib must be too dull for her twelve-week-old sensibilities, I decided—its raucous profusion of music boxes, mobiles, activity toys, and stuffed animals ranging from teddy bears to stingrays (seriously, the kid had a stuffed stingray) notwithstanding. I was encouraged in this delusion by Penelope Leach, whose book Your Baby and Child was pretty much The Dummy’s Guide to Motherhood of its day.
Leach’s view was that “fussy” babies, as she called them, were simply understimulated babies trying to communicate a need for better programming options. She was big on DIY boredom-busters, such as mobiles of dangling tea bags and Christmas balls and teaspoons, or “whatever is to hand.”
I made one out of child-safe fishing tackle that would have put Alexander Calder to shame ... in so many ways. I staged mini-puppet shows, and worked for hours creating entertaining balloon faces. My masterwork—a yellow skull-shaped number grimacing as if from sleep deprivation—was something of a self-portrait.
Baby Anni’s resolute failure to be amused by any of it suggested (to me and to Penelope, anyhow) that I simply wasn’t trying hard enough. Leach hinted openly that difficult babies were probably super-intelligent. It took me some months to wake up to the fact that, regardless, she was also super-exhausted. She didn’t need more entertainment. She needed less. Like mother,
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