Boredom Proneness and Attention-Related Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, measures intended to prevent the spread of the virus (e.g., social distancing) constrained individuals’ range of available activities, potentially promoting increased engagement in certain attention-related behaviours. We explored this possibility by assessing whether, one year into the pandemic, participants perceived changes in their mind-wandering, dreaming and media use when comparing their experiences at the time of testing to their memory of these experiences before COVID-19 prevention measures were implemented. Given that boredom prone individuals often struggle to effectively engage their attention, we also investigated trait boredom proneness as a possible contributing factor to these perceived changes. Participants perceived increases in many aspects of their mind-wandering and dreaming (e.g., frequency, pandemic-related content) as well as several forms of media use (e.g., smartphone use, media multitasking during work-related tasks). Moreover, those higher in boredom proneness reported greater increases across many of these experiences. Our findings suggest that individuals’ attention-related behaviours changed following the onset of the global crisis. They further suggest that adopting adaptive strategies for coping with boredom might have been effective in attenuating these perceived changes, and may be beneficial in the face of other major crises.