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Boredom is not having anything interesting to do.

As a kid most of my best discoveries and creativity were during boredom, when I went out of my way to try something new (or old, that I had not tried before) or occupied myself with whatever was at hand.

As an adult, during boredom I just try to find some kind of social interaction or go to sleep.

You need to be bored AND energetic (or at least lucid) to engage in creativity. Adults give most of their energy to their employers, hence it's no wonder that, in the downtime, little creativity happens. More than one famous author mentioned that during their periods of full-time employment they had no ideas or motivation, they were just barren.
It doesn't help that employment contracts in today's dystopia don't even allow one to be creative even in their spare time, as recently highlighted by popular cases.
Don't children also have more energy than adults, generally (physically and psychologically)?
That would explain a lot, as I rarely have energy at all.
As a kid I had 0 freedom to do anything due to lack of money, space, and privacy. As an adult I dive deep into my hobbies outside of work, specifically music, and refuse to let down the inner kid by being uninteresting or not fighting for work/life balance.
> As a kid I had 0 freedom to do anything due to lack of money, space, and privacy.

It was mostly the same for me, but I had a computer, which to me felt like infinite freedom.

It's almost too bad that boredome is so easily relieved in this modern internet-connected society.

like this comment I'm typing.

I just reach for my phone.
Boredom is not having anything interesting to do

Not true of everyone.

How else would you define it?

By "interesting" I mean "interesting to you"

All I need to show the identity you claim 'is not true of everyone' is to find a single person for whom it isn't true. I am that person, so I've proven it not to be true.

I am extremely rarely bored. Certainly "not having anything interesting to do" doesn't generate boredom in me. I am quite content with nothing to do at all (let alone something interesting).

Granted this is unusual (though very far from unique).

> I am extremely rarely bored.

But when you are bored, why is it?

I don't remember - I don't think I've experienced boredom in 20 years or more. It was never anything more than a distant, hazy & fleeting aspect of my emotional landscape.
> But even if we are one of those rare people who feels fulfilled, it is worth cultivating some degree of boredom, insofar as it provides us with the preconditions to delve more deeply into ourselves, reconnect with the rhythms of nature, and begin and complete highly focused, long and difficult work

I dont know wheather it is fact or FUD, but I have heard that mankinds IQ is sinking? If true, I attribute this to a large extend to the fact that there are so many distractions today that we no longer need to get bored thus deprive us of moments of deep mental immersion.

IQ seems to be rising, actually.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

That's old news. The new news is that that Flynn effect has stopped around the 80s to 90s for most first world countries - and we don't know why (probably end of the effects of the "low hanging fruit" improvements like better nutrition and more nurturing environments compared to the previous centuries and so on).
I assume the “Possible End of Progress” section is what the OP is referring to.
Then “IQ” is the wrong word for it.
No it isn't, read the Wiki:

> Research suggests that there is an ongoing reversed Flynn effect, i.e. a decline in IQ scores, in Norway, Denmark, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, France and German-speaking countries,[4] a development which appears to have started in the 1990s.[5][6][7][8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_p...

That's possible, I suppose.

I would think the strong negative correlation between amount of education and number of children, in the developed world at least, is a more likely culprit. Children tend to be like their parents.

boredom is not a lack of interesting things, but rather a lack of interest in committing to take interest in a thing. not a dearth, but a wealth of potentially interesting things and a refusal or inability to choose.
“Boredom is the mask frustration wears”
But even if we are one of those rare people who feels fulfilled, it is worth cultivating some degree of boredom

I dispute the bored vs fulfilled relationship, at least if it's supposed to be a universal (speaking as someone who very rarely feels either)

True