Brain Bridges: Exploring Boredom in Children through Co-Design

Danielle Begnaud, MID ’20

Karol Murlak, Associate Professor, Thesis Advisor

School of Design, Industrial Design

Brain Bridges: Exploring Boredom in Children through Co-Design is an examination into whether today’s children are losing an ability to generate their own antidotes to boredom, and instead are growing more dependent on external sources of increasingly digital and ubiquitous forms of entertainment. We conducted five cooperative inquiry sessions with youth (7-13 years old) to explore the role that boredom plays in their lives and techniques to spark imagination and enhance their efforts to overcome boredom.

*Elizabeth Bonsignore, Assistant Research Scientist and Director of Kids Team, College of Information Studies, Research Advisor