Why do some animals (like spiders or lizards) spend so much time just doing nothing? What is happening and why?
In: Biology
Humans are actually ~~very~~ somewhat unique in that they get bored at all. Look at lots of animals (especially cold blooded animals like others have said here) and you’ll see that they often spend a lot of time sleeping or just idly resting. I mean you can see that on any zoo trip.
They have evolved so that they don’t need to be doing stuff all the time to survive, so why waste the energy? As long as you can accomplish what you need to do to survive and reproduce, you’ve got your food, water, shelter, and territory… you’re good.
Humans are interesting in that we’ve developed very complex brains and behaviors to survive, AND since we’ve been so successful survival-wise, we have a lot of surplus energy to burn. We’re omnivores that are extremely adaptable, so to aid our survival, behaviors like exploring, keeping up with social bonds (and all the complex tasks and behaviors we do for that, like playing games and navigating social rules), hunting, gathering, farming, building, inventing tools, etc etc etc… all of those things had a purpose for us, so there was incentive for our brains to be thinking about doing stuff all the time and feeling a sense of reward for accomplishing those things. Since we established more organized societies and agriculture, food is usually in ready supply, so it’s okay to even “waste” that brain power on stuff like entertainment, science, philosophy, arts, whatever – which all has social benefits or benefit society in the long-term even if they don’t have immediate survival benefits – or in the case of entertainment, because we’re wired to feel rewarded for doing stuff.
TLDR If we were lizards, we probably wouldn’t find playing video games very rewarding because its a waste of time and energy. As humans we have the energy to burn and social/societal benefits for doing stuff all the time, so we get bored because we have the energy to be doing something rewarding.
Edit to address the replies: yes, other animals get bored too, it’s just something humans experience at a greater scale and we do more complicated stuff to entertain ourselves. Also, yes, humans do need time to do nothing as well – we’re not wired to spend 100% of our time doing stuff. It’s in fact very healthy to take time just to do nothing. Rest and mindfulness will do wonders for your mental health – we just live in a high-stimulation and productivity-obsessed society, so it can be hard sometimes.
Edit 2: to those getting pedantic in the replies about my first couple of sentences: this is ELI5. It’s an oversimplification.
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