Comfortably Bored

I can’t remember the last time I was truly bored.

Not tired, distracted, or putting something off. Just bored. With nothing to do and no immediate way to fix that.

There’s always something within reach. A screen, a notification, a podcast to fill the walk home. Even the small gaps in a day, waiting for a friend or standing in a queue, have become moments to check something. I reach for my phone before I’ve even noticed that I’m reaching for it.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, partly because I’ve spent the past decade building technology that people wear.

But my interest in design started before that, with watching Objectified in college. Listening to Jony Ive talk about the care that goes into making things made me want to become a designer. So I applied to every design school I could find and got rejected by all of them.

I hadn’t designed anything yet, so fair enough.

I took a year off, worked on problems around me, built a portfolio, and applied again. That got me into the design program in Delft, where I began to understand what design could do for people.

I worked on toys that could measure vitals for kids with cancer, a low-cost microscope for malaria diagnosis in rural Uganda, and eventually, smart glasses that could help blind people become more independent. That last project became Envision, the company I now lead.

Working in accessibility gives you a very particular perspective on technology. Someone wants to read a letter, find a doorway, or know who is in the room. The value is in what they can do with the help of the device. Their attention belongs to the life they’re trying to live.

Alongside that work, I’ve lived with a lot of wearable devices. Google Glass, Snap Spectacles, the Humane Pin, Rabbit R1. I’m drawn to the possibility of a different relationship with technology, and I keep trying things to understand what that might feel like.

Some moments have been magical. Others have been unbearably awkward. A device can do something extraordinary and still feel strange to use in the company of another person. It can save you time while giving you one more thing to check.

I keep coming back to how little room our devices leave for boredom.

We’ve become very good at filling every spare moment. I enjoy that convenience as much as anyone. But I miss having a thought that gets to run for a while without something interrupting it, including me.

When I have nothing to occupy me, there’s usually an uncomfortable stretch first. I want something to happen. If I leave it alone long enough, my mind starts finding its own things to do. I notice something around me. I return to a question I’d forgotten. Sometimes an idea turns up.

Plenty of times, nothing particularly interesting happens. I think that has to be allowed too.

“Comfortably bored” is the phrase I keep coming back to. Having enough space to sit with my thoughts without immediately needing to escape them.

I’d like to bring that ambition into the things we build. Especially now, as we figure out how AI fits into our everyday lives. What would it feel like to have a device that helped you with what you needed, then let the moment continue? Could it be useful enough that you trusted it, without giving you a reason to keep checking it?

I don’t have a finished answer. I do have years of watching people use technology to participate more fully in the world around them. That feels like a useful place to start.

I want to make things that leave us with more attention for our own lives. For the person sitting across from us, for something we haven’t noticed before, for a thought we haven’t quite finished.

And occasionally, for nothing at all.