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Together with Corinna Martarelli  (Swiss Distance Learning Institute) and Maik Bieleke (University of Vienna), Julia Schüler and Wanja Wolff co-edit a special issue on “Boredom in Health, Education and Sports” which will be published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Deadline for manuscript submissions is April 30^th, 2021. The call for papers can be found below:

“Recent years have seen substantial advancements in research on boredom, highlighting the powerful role it plays in motivating human behavior and hinting at its potentially profound implications for environmental and public health issues. Empirical and theoretical work indicates that the sensation of boredom functions as a signal that an ongoing activity is not worth allocating attention to and that one should rather pursue alternative, potentially more rewarding activities. Thus, boredom triggers exploration behavior, and this can prompt people to engage in adaptive as well as in maladaptive behaviors. Boredom occurs in situations where the attentional demands of an activity do not match with the persons’ attentional capacity and/or when the ongoing activity is perceived as meaningless. The tendency to get bored in these situations is associated with relatively stable individual differences in boredom proneness, making some people more likely to get bored than others.

Importantly, various activities that convey great environmental and health benefits display structural properties that render them likely to induce boredom, and this might deter people from engaging in these activities. For example, regular physical exercise conveys substantial benefits for personal and public health. However, the repetitiveness of exercise and the fact that gains only occur in small incremental steps can make exercise boring. Additionally, boredom is highly prevalent in academic settings, where it may not only interfere with achievement and performance but also with students’ well-being and health. In addition to preventing people from engaging in desirable behaviors, the experience of boredom can cause people to indulge in unhealthy behaviors and lifestyles, as well. Indeed, various behaviors that are detrimental to one’s health or wellbeing (e.g., gambling, substance abuse, snacking, problematic smartphone use) can be utilized to escape boredom due to the more immediate gratification they offer.

In this Special Issue, we call for submissions that investigate the impact of boredom on environmental and public health issues through the lens of one of the three contexts outlined above: sports and exercise, education, and (un-)healthy behavior. By combining research from three fields where boredom is likely to substantially affect behavior for better or worse, we hope to create synergies between these fields and advance the general understanding of the impact boredom has on matters of societal and personal relevance.”

Link to the special issue: IJERPH | Special Issue : Boredom in Health, Education and Sports (mdpi.com)