Wall Stare

Do nothing on purpose

Boredom used to arrive by itself. A queue, a bus, five minutes early for something. It stopped arriving once there was always something to look at, and we think it is worth putting back deliberately rather than waiting for a gap that no longer comes.

A session

A reminder arrives. You tap once, put the phone across the room, and look at a blank wall until a sound brings you back. Ten minutes to begin with; you can set anything from five to thirty, or type your own. There is no course, no streak, and nothing to get better at.

Where it sits

It lands in the same list as the dopamine detox apps and the digital detox blockers, and it goes further than they do. A blocker removes the apps and leaves everything else exactly where it was — the television, the window, the podcast, the room. Wall Stare removes the input. Nothing new to look at, nothing to listen to, nothing arriving at all for the length of the session.

When people use it

After work, or after a long stretch at a screen — and routinely rather than occasionally, which is the half most people skip.

Most arrive having noticed something: that they have forgotten how to be bored, or how to sit with themselves without reaching for a distraction. The tell is scrolling while already watching netflix. Scrolling through dinner. Scrolling at the bus stop with four minutes to wait. It is not the waiting that is the problem, it is how you try cover it.

Read on

• Dopamine detox — what the quiet is for, and what it is not
• Digital detox — removing the input, not just the apps
• Stare at a wall — why a blank wall, and how to be bored again
• About Wall Stare — why it exists