A new study confirms that young adults with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder tend to experience higher levels of boredom, and provides evidence that this tendency may be partly explained by difficulties with attention control and working memory. The findings, published in the Journal of Attention Disorders, help clarify the cognitive processes that may underlie boredom proneness in people with ADHD traits.
Boredom is often thought of as a trivial or passing annoyance, but research suggests it can be linked to a range of serious outcomes, including depression, anxiety, self-harm, poor academic performance, and increased workplace accidents. While most people experience boredom occasionally, some individuals seem to be more prone to it across many situations. This more persistent tendency, sometimes called trait boredom or boredom proneness, varies from person to person and is often measured using questionnaires designed to capture how frequently people feel bored in everyday life.
People with ADHD frequently report higher levels of boredom than their peers, but until now, few studies have explored why. The new study set out to investigate whether difficulties with attention control and working memory might help explain the relationship between ADHD symptoms and boredom proneness.
One of the motivations behind the study came from a personal anecdote shared by lead author Sarah Orban, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Tampa. During her dissertation defense, she was asked whether the children with ADHD in her study were simply bored during a math video task. This question stayed with her and eventually led to the present research.
“My dissertation examined whether children with ADHD display different levels of attention depending on environmental context,” Orban told PsyPost. “For the study, children with and without ADHD watched two 10-minute videos: an action-packed clip from Star Wars: Episode I (the podracing scene) and an instructional video of a teacher explaining long division.”
“I found that children with ADHD showed significantly worse attention than controls during the math video but not during the Star Wars clip. In fact, a video from this experiment occasionally resurfaces and circulates on the internet. Here’s a link if you’d like to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=167se17RNHw.
“During my defense, one faculty member asked, ‘Aren’t the kids just bored because they’re watching a boring math video?’ That simple question sparked my curiosity about why people with ADHD often report feeling more bored than their peers in the same situations.”
To investigate, Orban and her colleagues recruited 115 undergraduate students from a southeastern U.S. university. After screening for eligibility, the final sample included 88 participants—31 who met criteria for high ADHD traits and 57 who did not. The participants completed a series of standardized self-report measures assessing current and past ADHD symptoms, as well as a validated 8-item scale measuring trait boredom. They also completed six computerized tasks designed to measure attention control and working memory.
The ADHD trait group was identified based on self-reported symptoms using three widely used tools: the Barkley Adult ADHD Rating Scale, the Adult ADHD Self-Report Screening Scale for DSM-5, and the Wender Utah Rating Scale for childhood symptoms. To qualify for the ADHD trait group, participants needed to exceed symptom thresholds on both current and childhood ADHD measures. This method ensured that only individuals with a consistent pattern of ADHD symptoms over time were included.
As expected, the ADHD trait group reported significantly higher levels of boredom proneness. The difference between groups was large in magnitude, suggesting that boredom may be a common and impactful experience for people with ADHD symptoms. In addition, participants with ADHD traits performed worse on several attention control and working memory tasks, reinforcing previous findings that these executive functions are frequently impaired in people with ADHD.
“The key finding from our research is that young adults with elevated ADHD symptoms, which we called ‘ADHD traits’ because participants were not formally diagnosed but scored highly on self-report measures, showed much higher levels of boredom proneness compared to peers without these traits,” Orban told PsyPost. “The difference was striking as individuals with ADHD traits scored nearly two standard deviations higher in boredom proneness than the control group.”
“Based on prior research, I expected to see a group difference, but the effect in my study was much larger than what is typically reported in similar studies. While it’s possible that our relatively small sample size may have inflated the effect size, the findings still provide strong evidence that individuals with ADHD traits are significantly more prone to boredom than those without these traits.”
To better understand the relationship between ADHD symptoms, boredom, and cognitive performance, the researchers used statistical mediation analyses. These analyses tested whether attention control and working memory could partially explain why individuals with ADHD traits are more prone to boredom.
The tasks used in the study were selected to tap into different aspects of executive function. Attention control was assessed using three tasks that measured the ability to resist distractions, sustain focus over time, and resolve conflicting information. One task, for example, required participants to respond to visual cues after unpredictable delays, which simulated the kinds of sustained attention required in real-world monitoring tasks. Working memory was measured using three “complex span” tasks that required participants to hold information in memory while simultaneously completing other mental operations, such as solving math problems or judging the symmetry of shapes.
The researchers found that the strongest associations between boredom proneness and attention performance emerged in tasks that involved sustained attention and interference control. For example, participants who performed worse on the sustained attention task tended to report higher levels of boredom.
Participants who struggled to keep track of sequences of letters, spatial locations, or arrows during the complex span tasks were also more likely to report high boredom proneness. These findings point toward a role for the central executive component of working memory—the part responsible for attention regulation and mental updating—in shaping how people experience and respond to tasks that require effort.
“We conducted a preliminary analysis to explore whether aspects of executive attention, which we refer to as ‘attention control’ and ‘working memory’ in our study, could help explain this link between ADHD traits and boredom,” Orban explained. “The results suggested that attention control and working memory play important roles, indicating that part of the reason individuals with ADHD traits experience more boredom is due to challenges in regulating and sustaining their attention as well as using their working memory.”
“To put this into perspective, imagine a motivated student taking a challenging Organic Chemistry course. Even if they are genuinely interested in the material, the complexity of the class may make it difficult to stay focused. Instead of recognizing their own struggles with attention, the student might simply label the class as ‘boring.’ For individuals with ADHD, who often experience persistent attention difficulties, situations like this are a regular part of daily life, making boredom a frequent and pervasive experience.”
While the results offer important insights, there are some limitations. The study relied on self-report measures for ADHD symptoms and boredom, which can be influenced by shared method bias or social desirability. Another limitation is the modest sample size, which limited the statistical power to detect smaller effects.
“We worked with a relatively small sample of about 88 participants, which is why our analyses exploring the mechanisms of boredom should be considered preliminary,” Orban noted. “To be confident about those findings, we’d need at least twice as many participants, if not more. Because of time and funding constraints, we weren’t able to collect a larger sample. So while our results offer an exciting first glimpse into why people with ADHD traits might be more prone to boredom, they should be seen as a starting point rather than a final answer.
“In addition, our sample was composed of college students, most of who were female and the ADHD group did not have formal diagnosis. Therefore, the results might not generalize to other groups of people or to those with diagnosed ADHD using gold standard methods.”
Despite these limitations, the study opens the door to new possibilities for intervention. If boredom in individuals with ADHD is linked to specific cognitive weaknesses, then strategies that strengthen attention control or support working memory might help reduce boredom and improve functioning in academic or occupational settings. For example, breaking tasks into shorter, more manageable chunks, introducing meaningful rewards, or using techniques to boost engagement could help reduce the cognitive load and maintain attention.
“I have several ongoing projects focused on understanding boredom in ADHD,” Orban said. “In one study, I’m actively inducing boredom in participants to see how people with ADHD respond compared to those without ADHD. I’m also running a larger, long-term study with college students who have a formal ADHD diagnosis to examine how boredom is related to their academic performance. Ultimately, my goal is to use this research to develop interventions that help individuals with ADHD manage boredom and stay engaged in their daily lives.”
“This research was made possible thanks to the support of my close colleague, Dr. Jennifer Blessing, and three talented undergraduate students, who have since graduated. I’m grateful for their contributions, as the project could not have been completed without their hard work and collaboration.”
The study, “Why Are Individuals With ADHD More Prone to Boredom? Examining Attention Control and Working Memory as Mediators of Boredom in Young Adults With ADHD Traits,” was authored by Sarah A. Orban, Jennifer S. Blessing, Madelyn K. Sandone, Benjamin Conness, and Jenna Santer.
