More Options, More Boredom

Nowadays I hear from many friends that they are bored to death. Nothing can rescue them. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, YouTube, Instagram Reels, Sony Liv and hundreds of TV channels appear to be useless to them. They say that nothing is worth watching.

It reminds me of the days when I was around seven years old. Every Sunday, at nine-thirty in the morning, the city used to go through a half-an-hour long self-imposed curfew. We used to wait for this moment for at least one or two days. The more enthusiastic ones waited for a bigger number of days. The reason was simple. Doordarshan used to telecast the popular TV serial based on Ramayana.

Nobody talked of boredom then. I never heard anybody saying that nothing is worth watching. And frankly speaking, we had nothing to watch except one Ramayana, one Hindi feature film and two Chitrahars in a week. But we used to live in the bliss of entertainment, and we used to excitedly wait for each of them.

On one hand, today people are bored despite the hundreds of options available at their fingertips. On the other hand, people used to be excited despite having not more than four options in a week. There could be two reasons behind this contrast in the experiences.

First, maybe I am suffering from a case of selective memory. I remember the excitement we felt for Ramayana and Chitrahars, but I am conveniently forgetting the boredom we used to suffer from the rest of the time. Perhaps our boredom those days was just like the boredom we have these days. It’s just that I don’t remember the bad parts of the past days.

Second, I feel that we human beings enjoy something more when it’s available in less quantity. When the quantity is less, we spend a lot of time waiting for it and letting the excitement build up. But when we get something in a huge quantity which is available all the time, we don’t get the base of waiting and excitement which adds to the pleasure of actual experience when it finally comes.

It’s no surprise that discontentment and boredom in most of us are increasing with the bigger number of options being made available to us by the consumerist industry. We may have found a better lifestyle, but our mental and emotional satisfaction has gone for a toss. When it comes to feeling satisfied and happy, perhaps ‘the less is more’.