The In Between
Time spent on the front porch in the mid summer heat braiding pine straw that became sharp, uncomfortable bracelets and necklaces. Long string tied to a June bug’s leg and “flying it” til you- or it - quit. Building a much too tall and equally unstable bicycle ramp out of old wood and convincing my brother to “jump it”…resulting in an er visit for him and grounding for me. Chasing black runner snakes, only to learn they will in fact chase you back. Hours upon hours on a float in the middle of the lake contemplating life. Or not. These are all memories from a childhood, born out of boredom. Where boredom was an incredibly regular, and often encouraged part of life. A time, a space, the in-between all the other “stuff” we were doing that has been lost. The slow quiet removal of the ability to be bored is having a much larger impact on society that we realize.
Christine Rosen takes a look at the in between and wrote this: “Interstitial time.” Interstices are the gaps between things, as with the cells in your body or the spaces between architectural columns. When applied to time, it means the many bits of time scattered throughout the day such as the five minutes that students have in between classes, or the unknown number of seconds that pass while you are waiting for an elevator. These moments used to be given over to silent reflection or conversation with whoever is around. Now, for most of us, nearly all of them are grabbed by our phones”.
I like to look at both the long stretches of boredom and the small in between moments as equally important. Either way, it is time that has been ripped from us due to technology. And it is not just time that is stolen. It is creativity. Openness. Thoughtfulness. Connections. It has made us less patient. Less empathetic towards others. Our need to be constantly entertained is robbing us not only of ideas, but our ability to just…be…in the world. How many times do we reach for our phone at a stop light because the 2 minutes simply sitting feels like too much? When was the last time you were in a waiting room and didn’t see the tops of heads, faces lit up by a screen? I am willing to bet if you did make eye contact with someone they were north of 60. When was the last time we let our kids be bored? Let them sit with friends, device and game free, and just figure it out? I think of all the amazing connections that have been formed because two people had five minutes in a coffee shop somewhere, were phone free, and simply spoke to one another.
Technology created and has encouraged a world of now. AI has quickly closed any gaps that were left. Sure it can remove the mundane tasks and disguise the application as efficiency. We want to be faster. Better. Than everyone else. But why? Does faster actually make us better? At what point did sitting in the uncomfortable places of the in between become such a negative space? One could argue it is that friction that we feel, the “rub” of the in between of having to read, research, quietly think…that it is in this space that we build incredibly resilient, empathetic, connected humans. I believe our ability to predict our kids success with AI, and how future generations will navigate it in a healthy manner, is not going to lie within how fast one can use AI or how to manipulate it to be better at various tasks. I believe our most successful will be the youth that are most interested in connections. More interested in spending as much time on a baseball field, reading as many books as possible, learning to play an instrument. Things that require patience, focus and time. These are the life givers. And builders. No matter how much tech changes the world, I cling to the idea that as humans we will intrinsically recognize the need to operate in spaces that allows time for the in between.
According to Pew Research, nine out of ten Americans own a smartphone, and 95 percent of teenagers have access to one. A 2024 Pew survey of teens ages 13-17 found that half said they were online “almost constantly.” I think it is time that we take a look at some of the important things we are truly losing, the minute we gained technology. Encourage your kids to be bored, to embrace the in between. It is where really cool life stuff happens.