No Time for Boredom

Introduction

What do you do when you’re bored? Do you turn on the television? Listen to music on your iPod? Log on to your computer and surf the web? Text or tweet on your cell phone? Statistics show that the average American spends nearly five hours a day watching television. Additional hours are spent on the computer, cell phone and other information devices. We’ve become a nation of “screen watchers” who get the bulk of our information via electronic media (fewer then 10 percent of us now rely on newspapers or magazines for our news and other information).

From sports, recreation and hobbies to art, literature and music, Trail End’s current exhibit, No Time For Boredom: Making the Most of Leisure Time in a “Screenless” Society, examines how people spent their free time before the introduction of all these screens.

If you think life before computers or television must have been dreadfully dull, just wait until you see the options that were available – and still are today. You just might get inspired to do something different when the thought, “I’m bored,” enters your head.