Does Gen Z ‘Rawdogging Boredom’ Trend Actually Fix Your A...

By Marni Rose McFall

News Reporter

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Gen Z is on a dopamine diet. A trend has swept TikTok, where young people are being bored on purpose: putting their phones down, staring into space, doing nothing. It’s symbiotic of an age where constant overstimulation has made boredom a luxury item. But can ‘Rawdogging Boredom’ actually help to fix your attention span? Newsweek spoke to experts to find out more.

What Is The ‘Rawdogging Boredom' Trend?

Originally slang for sex without a condom, the term Rawdogging has evolved to mean. doing something without protection, distraction, or preparation.

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Rawdogging boredom means the total deprivation of stimulation, for various periods of time, ranging from short spans of 10 to 30 minutes to multiple hours.

Can It Help Fix Your Attention Span?

So, can diving into boredom actually help to fix your attention span?

“I suppose it could,” Andreas Elpidorou, the author of The Anatomy of Boredom and a writer and researcher at the University of Louisville, told Newsweek over email. But it’s not that simple, Elpidorou said, noting that it would “depend on whether one engages in the activity regularly and mindfully.”

“A one-off event does not a skill make: repetition, training, and habituation all seem to me to be necessary for the development of lasting and impactful capacities,” Elpidorou added.

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Elizabeth H. Weybright, professor at Washington State University, told Newsweek over email that her first reaction to the trend was, “I’m all for it!”

“The overall idea of sitting in boredom and doing nothing is really valuable for children as well as adults,” Weybright said. “Doing nothing does have benefits when it comes to fostering creativity and allowing space to think deeply.”

However, she highlighted one concern about the trend. “Social media can often represent extremes or short-lived trends,” she said.

“I’m not sure we know just how much of doing nothing is good enough to be beneficial. There might be a tipping point where doing nothing for the sake of social media isn’t beneficial long-term. And although a one-time reset might be helpful for a bit, it likely would be better to practice doing nothing on a regular basis,” Weybright said.

Meanwhile, Heather C. Lench, PhD, professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas University, told Newsweek that “there are probably benefits to learning to tolerate boredom and to reducing the habits of picking up phones and screens when bored.

Lench likened the trend to exposure therapies, when “people are flooded with a stimulus that they have a phobia or fear about.”

And similar to limitations with exposure therapy, Lench said that there could be drawbacks with this trend. She instead suggested “systematic desensitization.”

This idea is “to start by learning to tolerate a little bit of a feared stimulus while practicing control and relaxation, and then gradually work your way up to more feared stimuli.”

“A similar approach to boredom seems like it would be more effective,” Lench said. “Find an approach to relaxation or mindfulness that works well for you and then start with small periods of boredom or a task that you find mildly boring, gradually working your way up to longer periods or more boring experiences to build your tolerance.”

How Concerned Should We Be About Our Attention Spans?

It’s well documented that attention spans are declining rapidly. Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, told the Speaking of Psychology podcast that the average attention span has dramatically decreased in recent years. "Back in 2004, we found the average attention span on any screen to be two-and-a-half minutes," she said.

"Around 2012, it dropped to 75 seconds. In the last few years, it’s about 47 seconds—and the median is just 40 seconds."

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Elpidorou told Newsweek, “Attention is a valuable resource, so we should always be concerned with how it’s exercised and engaged. It’s undeniable that much of our everyday life moves to the rhythms of the attention economy.”

“Our attention, however, should also be spent on ourselves—on projects that are meaningful to us, and on our loved ones,” he added.

And beyond this, “shorter spans aren’t just a symptom of losing control over our attention; they may also signal a weakening capacity to sustain focus over time. That’s troubling. No matter how fast or fragmented our world becomes, there will always be times when sustained attention is necessary.”

There’s really only one thing for it: put down your phone and find out for yourself.

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