As technologies progress, it becomes easier to find entertainment and distractions. Escaping boredom is quick and people rarely stay in that mindset for long. It has become easy to overcome boredom without even taking the time to reflect on why it happened in the first place. In his text “The Quiet Alarm”, Andrea Elpidorou tries to convince that boredom is a valuable emotional state that motivates people to seek out for more stimulating activities. To achieve that, Elpidorou uses comparison and examples In his text, Elpidorou uses comparison to prove that boredom promotes the change of habits and behaviours. He compares boredom to pain to explain that boredom makes people aware of unfulfilling situation and to show that it motivates people …show more content…
The author explains that boredom highlights what a person is seeking. For example, in a monotone situation, the person is bored because there is a lack of variety. If the situation is familiar, the person wants novelty. When doing obligatory tasks, the person desires to do something of his own will and id therefore bored. (74) These examples demonstrate that boredom occurs when people are unsatisfied of their activities and lack something. People are then more aware of what matters to their happiness and will be influenced to seek for it. Values and wishes are clearer. With the examples, readers most probably recognize this bored feeling of doing unfulfilling tasks and have a better understanding of how boredom can help interpret their desires. To prove that boredom promotes pursuing goals, Elpidorou uses examples the metal state of a bored person. “We feel uneasy and restless. Our minds wander. We mentally catalogue alternative goals. […]In a state of boredom, [time] appears to drag. We want to escape from boredom’s unpleasant grip.”(75) According to Elpidorou, these different feelings people have when bored motivate them to strive for alternative goals. To escape the boredom caused by disinterest, people are influenced to pursue goals that will satisfy them. Everyone has experienced this feeling of indifference towards certain tasks and consequently relates to the examples used by Elpidorou and are more convinced by his point. In short, by using examples, Elpidorou shows that boredom allows people to have a better understanding of what fulfills them and are leads them to pursue gratifying