Young Writers Society

“Boredom (bôr’ dǝm) n. The condition of being bored or uninterested.”

-Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Warner Books, 1987

-Note: this is not to say that YWS is boring. Quite the oppisite, actually.

Title: Boredom; Sweeping epidemic, or explainable phenomenon? Or why YWSers are always bored.

Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to determine the reasons why YWSers are always bored.

Variables: Not every YSWer is the same, but the majority (that we have observed during the duration of the expirament) has expressed feelings of boredom or lack of something to do.

Procedure:

1)Spend an awful lot of time chatting with people in the chat room and the chat bar.

a.Observe for 2 weeks.

b.Do not intentionally bring up the subject of boredom.

2)Take note of the activities that the individuals who claim to be bored.

3)Don’t procrastinate on actually writing the paper.

a.Write it lab-report-style

b.Make a pretty pie graph

c.Make up believable statistics

d.Draw a reasonable conclusion

Data:

-It was noted that the number of adolescents who participate in this website is extremely high.

-It was also noted that during the observation period, all those observed were under the age of 26.

-On average, 1 out of every 3 times the chat room was visited for an extended period of time (2 hours or more), at least one user claimed boredom.

-75% of the time, another user agreed with the first user who claimed boredom.

-Out of all the conversations had on chat, not one user mentioned that they were doing a sport

Graph:

Conclusion:

There are several factors contributing to the over-all boredom rates of YWSers. Age, Occupation, and preferences of leisure activities.

Age: As noted in the data, all YWSers observed were under 26 years old, however, most were adolescents. This age group has had technology at their fingertips for most of their life, and technology has gotten better and faster in the past 10 years or so. So fast, that most of the young people with access to technology have gotten used to instant gratification. Unlike the past, the young people of today no longer have to wait as long or as much for nearly anything. This gives the young people more time. Young people who have grown up with the internet all their life are much more likely to squander that extra free time on the internet as opposed to adults who, in certain cases, are still strangers to the internet and would rather catch up on whatever activities they did before the internet was invented.

Occupation: With so many young users (This is YOUNG Writer’s Society, is it not?) it’s likely that a large amount of users are full- or part-time students. Many schools have a seasonal hiatus in the summer months, and shorter breaks at various other times. Although these times off of school are not globally synchronized to the same months, there is still a large amount of time in which many students are left with little else to do than “hang around.” It is during such a time that many are attracted to the internet to alleviate the boredom that comes with taking such a long break after having been busy all year with schooling. Simply put, many students don’t know what to do with their time after being freed from responsibilities.

However, not all young people go to school. Many have jobs to pay for their price of living. Sadly, most of these jobs are not “dream-jobs” per say, and many young people may feel less connected to their jobs than full-fledged adults are to theirs. Consequently, they spend less time worrying about their job than adults, and less time socializing with their coworkers, who, if most of their coworkers are much older than them, may seem too distant in age to be considered a “friend.” Thus, the young adult turns to the internet in search of people to communicate with. Also, many young adults are unemployed, which gives them LOADS of free time.

Other leisure activities: Also noted in the data is that out of all the conversations had in chat, not one user mentioned they were doing a sport. Sports take up a great deal of time, which would explain why a user who played sports would not spend as much time on YWS as a user who did not play sports. Generally, those who are more physically active seem to be less bored, but those who are more physically active spend less time sitting in front of the computer, doing…. Not much. Same goes for many other activities; if the activity takes up lots of time, there is less time for sitting around doing nothing, and instead of being bored, it is called “relaxing,” which is completely different.

tl;dr I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS