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Is constant stimulation hurting our creativity—and the economy? The Dilbert creator on his dull childhood and the power of tedium.
The creator of Dilbert argues that boredom provides fuel for creativity. Since we are never bored, the argument goes, we have become less creative. Anecdotal evidence includes people acting more dogmatically, more sequels and derivative products of movies, more reality TV, and most importantly, a flat-lining economy starving for industry-transforming innovation. I'd say he's mostly got it right, but the reason why we're less creative is because we are more distracted than ever. As a result, our attention spans have diminished to 10-minute windows of focus - if we can't find creative insights inside that window, no creativity emerges. Also, creativity comes from useful problems. Scott Adams' boredom as a child was a problem that he was able to solve creatively because he was so undistracted.
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