The 6 differences between boredom and apathy: how to distinguish them?

Sometimes we experience emotions or sensations that bear a certain resemblance to another and that can lead to confusion.

This time we are going to break down the main differences between boredom and apathy, first knowing what characterizes each of them in order to learn to distinguish them easily, focusing on those elements in which both sensations diverge.

• Related article: "Emotional psychology: main theories of emotion"

What do we mean by boredom and apathy?

Although at certain times we may have doubts about what exactly we are feeling, the truth is that there are differences between boredom and apathy that help us to distinguish them and to be able to correctly label our condition. But for this, the first thing we must be clear about is what each of these feelings consists of, so we will start by defining them in order to have the base we need before moving on.

Boredom is a feeling of discomfort that a person experiences when he is living a certain situation that does not produce interest or motivation

. It usually occurs with repetitive stimuli or that cause the subject to quickly tire. It can also be generated precisely in the absence of stimuli.

Conversely, apathy has to do with a state of indifference to stimuli. The person who is suffering from this condition would show a lack of emotionality and enthusiasm. He would have lost the motivation to do any activity, no matter what it was. It would not be a response to a specific stimulus, but it would be a generalized state in this person.

Once we have made this first approach to both concepts, we can delve into the differences between boredom and apathy to continue to correctly distinguish these two phenomena.

The main differences between boredom and apathy

Next we will go on to compile a list of the main differences between boredom and apathy.

1. The question of desire

The first clear difference that we find in this matter is given by the desire to perform an action. When we talk about boredom, the person wants to perform a different action than the one he is doing (if he is doing any). But the case of apathy is different. An individual who is experiencing apathy will not want to carry out the activity that he is doing or any other. He doesn't want to do any of them.

2. The motivation

Another difference between boredom and apathy comes from motivation. A person who is bored is motivated to carry out an activity that satisfies him, since the situation he is in Living in that particular moment does not please him, either due to lack of activity or because the activity he is doing is tedious.

However, during the state of apathy there is no such motivation to carry out any activity. The person is in a state of total loss of interest for the performance of any exercise, whatever it may be.

• You may be interested in: "Types of motivation: the 8 motivational sources"

3. The end

If we focus on the purpose or usefulness of these states, we could observe that boredom is acting as a red flag to the individual, to move him towards the search for another type of action that satisfies him, so in a certain way it would be a driver to get the person to steer her behavior toward activities that are positive.

On the contrary, apathy does not drive the person to act, quite the contrary. It would be submerging him in a kind of lethargy for which he would not want to initiate any type of action. Therefore, we note that this is one of the big differences between boredom and apathy.

4. Cause

As for the cause, boredom can come simply from a lack of motivation towards the specific task (or no task) and a desire to do another, as we have already seen. But apathy, in some cases, may have a pathological component. In fact, it is considered that at the clinical level, a continuous state of apathy can be an indicator of risk of depression.

In other cases, when it is considered that it does not reach the level of minor depression, it can be included within the dissociative identity disorder. In addition, it must be taken into account that sometimes apathy can also have a chemical origin, for example as a side effect when consuming certain drugs.

5. Symptom

Continuing with the differences between boredom and apathy, we see that apathy can represent a symptom in a variety of diseases, starting with depression, as we have already seen in the point previous. But also can be observed in patients suffering from other pathologies, such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Wernicke's disease or also schizoid personality disorder.

As for boredom, it does not have a clinical significance by itself, since it is a transitory state that usually disappears at the moment of that the person finds a task that motivates him more or that for any reason is more pleasant, thus ending his frustration.

6. Remedy

Another point that is one of the differences between boredom and apathy is the remedy that can be given.

In the case of boredom, it seems clear that the solution would lie in finding a purpose with which to use time in a pleasant way. Active entertainment is more enriching than passive entertainment in that sense, which would act as a kind of temporary patch.

Therefore, it seems that boredom can be remedied in a reasonably simple way, also counting on multiple ways to do this, since it is not usually a single activity that can eliminate boredom, but a great variety of they. The only thing that the subject needs is to find one and get to work to eliminate the unpleasant sensation in which he is immersed.

But apathy has more complex roots and therefore requires more elaborate solutions. This occurs especially when we are talking about clinical apathy, as we saw in the previous points. At that point, the help of a professional psychologist will be required, since apathy would be a symptom of a pathology that requires therapy to be healed.

The dangers of chronic boredom

We have gone over a number of differences between boredom and apathy to realize that they are actually very different concepts and, apparently, apathy reverses greater complexity and risks than boredom. However, there is a form of boredom that can also carry some dangers. It's about chronic boredom.

There is a profile of people who, faced with continuous boredom situations, they may experience such discomfort that they will significantly increase the chances that they will choose to engage in risky behaviors to try to compensate for that feeling. These types of behaviors include the use of substances such as alcohol or drugs.

Others might try to alleviate boredom anxiety through disproportionate intakes of food, being able to develop eating disorders, such as bulimia.

Obviously, these are extreme cases and also tremendously complex, which should be analyzed in detail, since most likely is that another series of variables were involved in the problem that would have ended up causing this situation in the individual.

Apathy and apathy

Delving into the differences between boredom and apathy, we are going to devote more attention to some of the characteristics of the latter. This affective state supposes in the individual, as we have already seen, an emotional flattening, in which he feels neither positive nor negative emotions. His lethargy leads him to not channel any stimulus emotionally, neither in one sense nor in another.

But also, apathy usually leads to another phenomenon, which is apathy. It is a psychopathological state in which the person has lost the unwillingness to carry out any activity and also feel that you do not even have enough energy to do it. Therefore, he is mired in an emotional flattening and without the strength or the desire to participate in any activity or exercise.

Not all cases of people with apathy show such extreme symptoms, but when it is, we would enter the field of pathology and therefore the individual should receive the necessary psychological help to manage to overcome and recover an adequate affective state, since we have already seen that in many cases apathy can be the prelude to depression.

After this compendium of differences between boredom and apathy, we now have the tools to be able to distinguish between both phenomena and understand in which cases we must refer to each of they.

Bibliographic references:

• Corvinelli, A. (2005). Alleviating boredom in adult males recovering from substance use disorder. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health. Taylor & Francis.
• Goldberg, Y.K., Eastwood, J.D., LaGuardia, J., Danckert, J. (2011). Boredom: An emotional experience distinct from apathy, Anhedonia, or depression. Journal of Social and Clinical.- Guilford Press.
• Mann, R.S. (1990). Differential diagnosis and classification of apathy. Am J Psychiatry. Citeseer.
• Marin, R.S. (nineteen ninety six). Apathy: concept, syndrome, neural mechanisms, and treatment. Seminars in clinical neuropsychiatry.