In a culture increasingly unsettled by boredom or silence, the four-week season of Advent invites us into the spiritual discipline of watchful and hopeful waiting, insisting that we were made for more than constant stimulation. But now that we carry, in our pockets, devices specifically engineered to colonise our attention — offering endless scrolls through social media, instant notifications, or quick games to fill every idle moment — boredom has become optional. Yet neuroscience tells a different story.