That's me, playing FlightControl on my iPhone during a recent flight.
What ever happened to being allowed to be bored? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE technology. I feel I am owed Wi-Fi on my flights and I get upset when I can’t choose the movie I want to watch while flying. I know I am spoiled and the way things are going, I assume in a few years I will be spoiled even more.
But whatever happened to being bored on a flight? I kind of miss it. When I fly I always have some electronic something-or-another to entertain me. Heck, I am typing this blog up while flying at 30,000 feet [even though I am not posting this blog while flying]. I am on Southwest and there is no in-flight entertainment or wi-fi. I was playing games on my iPhone and computer and every time I stopped I got bored and went back to my electronic distractions.
It just seems we are moving to a society where we can never ever be bored and being bored is the worst possible thing you could ever be. With computers, phones, the internet, bored-stoppers are never too far.
Yet, are we missing something by not being bored? I have come up with some pretty amazing ideas while flying and being bored. How many amazing ideas and thoughts are being missed everyday by the flying public because they distract their brains the entire flight?
Just gazing out the window, staring at the ground below, letting my mind wander for a few hours is a great experience. Not only do you get to be bored, but you get to see the world from up-high. Well, I am going to bring bored back! I am going to shut down this laptop, stare out the window and be bored for the remainder of my flight. Wish me luck.
It isn’t being bored that concerns me. It is making sure that the potential for being bored is limited. I’m flying to Israel later this year. As far as I can tell, Delta has not upgraded the 747 fleet from Northwest to include individual inflight entertainment systems, much like the ones they have on their 777LRs. Overhead movies are usually not interesting to me. There are no games for diversion, nothing to see out the window (I have an aisle seat anyways). I’ll likely have a book but it may not hold my interest. I don’t own an i-pod, i-phone or i-anything (I am i-less), so I mostly hope for an empty seat (or more) next to me, and hope the Sominex kicks in quickly.
Hey Chris!
Very good point. Two-hour flight-bored is one thing. Ten hour bored is another and not fun at all. On longer flights I really try to sleep, but getting 10hr on a flight is near impossible. Having no entertainment on a plane going across the ocean would be hard. But also think what it was like when it took a week to do it on a plane vs half a day.
I really like the i-less. All I have is an i-Phone and I held off on that as long as I could, but with the blog, I can’t live without it!
David
Ahh, being bored on a plane. That’s when a good book comes into play. Flying on the Delta MD-88s and DC-9s, that’s all I get, unless I get a window seat.
David,
What an excellent post! I have a 6 year old daughter and she is constantly bored, even when she’s got technology. Case in point – last week, I walked into the room to find her playing Barbie.com on my Macbook while watching a TV show. But she was still “bored.”
So, one has to wonder, as you have here, where does it all end? Maybe it doesn’t.
On a bit of an aside:
Maybe we’re in a Matrix of our own making, and you, me and everybody else using social media, for instance, have been luring in the folks who haven’t yet adopted it. We beckon to them. Join us. We’re just as much part of the problem if there is one. 🙂
My two cents, after a long day.
David
Yes I agree that there should be more entertainment but what about a old fashioned MP3 player and a book I spend a lot of time on trains they don’t have any thing like a lot of airlines have .I don’t travel anywhere with out a book or a couple of Mags like Flight International.
Great post, David. On long flights, sans access to email and social media, I like to ignore the IFE for sevaral hours and focus first on the cross word puzzles I’ve neglected for several weeks. I mean, who has time to work them, normally? Then I like to wrap myself around a great book that, during my daily life, I’ve not had time to read. Flying gives me a chance to slow down.
Favorite long-haul read: Around the World in 80 Dates.