Easily bored?

If you’re easily bored, it’s also likely that you’re more prone to depression. According to those who study boredom, its sources, types and treatments, boredom appears to be determined somewhat by personality but also by choices we make. In short, boredom researcher John Eastwood of York University in Toronto says, “To be bored is to be disengaged from the world.” Researchers Norman Sundberg (University of Oregon) and Richard Farmer (Oregon Research Institute) have even come up with an instrument to measure your propensity toward it: the Boredom Proneness Scale. You can test yourself against it at the link above, or read about the whole subject in more depth in Scientific American Mind’s December 2007 issue.