New Internet Challenge Is Not for the Faint of Heart

Gen Z just discovered boredom. We used to call it Thursday.

Just when you thought the TikTok generation had run out of aggressively normal activities to rebrand into trends (think: intermittent fasting, which we used to just call forgetting your lunch or occasionally, being sent to bed without dinner), they’ve come up with a hot new mental-health practice they’ve dubbed “rawdogging boredom.”

Here’s how you do it: Turn off your phone.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

(Although if you need your phone to film yourself not being on your phone, apparently that’s allowed.)

If you’re over thirty or have no idea what rawdogging means, definitely don’t Google it at work. The term hit the internet scene in the early 2000s as the hipster way of saying having sex without protection. But because appropriating slang into everyday use is the Gen Z Way, now it means doing something—anything—without a buffer. It could be (gasp!) skipping coffee one morning, (the horror!) taking a walk without headphones, or (you cannot be serious?!?!) deleting Snapchat from your phone for an entire day. When it’s just you and the cold, unfiltered experience of existence, you’re out there rawdogging life.

To stare down that pernicious beast that is boredom, the kids literally set timers, film themselves not watching TikTok, and call it a “challenge.” Some admit they can’t last six minutes before caving, while others—clearly the emotional ninjas—can unplug for two entire hours before breaking into a cold sweat and lunging for the Wi-Fi like it’s the last Stanley cup on the clearance rack.

@katend06I saw someone else do this and wanted to try.

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The clips are nearly identical: A young woman (typically) sitting in various positions looking faintly miserable; a sped-up time-lapse ticker; a list of “rules” (no TV, no music, no sleeping, no books, no food, no phone). The comments are mostly hilarious: “I do this for seven hours every day at school.” “That looks painful.” “Yeah… no thanks.” “I once sat on a 15-hour flight from Texas to Qatar without my phone because I had no charger. I just sat and thought about my life. 😂”

I grew up in an era when boredom wasn’t a wellness practice—it was life. We rawdogged everything. Long car rides. Waiting rooms. The DMV. Saturday nights when your parents commandeered the single TV. Church. If you stared out the window too long, someone would tell you to “make yourself useful” and hand you a rake.

You didn’t get a gold star for going Zen; you got chores.

Post-millennials now embark on silent retreats (what we used to call carpooling with the dorky neighbor), vision boarding (making a Christmas list), digital detoxes (existing), and manifesting sessions (wishing really hard). They act as if they’ve unlocked the secret to enlightenment when really, they’ve just discovered what life feels like without a phone.

Experts say the trend is good for sparking creativity and reducing anxiety. Of course it is! It’s literally meditation—one of the oldest mindfulness practices in human history. (Of course, I’m pretty sure the Buddha didn’t film himself maneuvering the Eightfold Path.)

“It’s one of the saddest things I’ve seen,” wrote SomeGuyOnPhone on X. “Gen Z is addicted to social media and constant stimulation—unable to exist without distraction. When simply sitting in silence for fifteen minutes becomes a trend, it’s no experiment; it’s a symptom of addiction.”

SomeGuy has a point… but isn’t the fact that they’re essentially acknowledging the addiction and actually trying to address it at least mildly commendable? (I mean it’s funny and we can laugh at them for treating airplane mode like a spiritual practice, but in their collective defense, they didn’t ask to be born into the iGeneration. I say, if some of them are actually seeing the need for an electronic time-out, we should support them. While also laughing.)

@igvpresentsObsessed with Steve Carell shouting SLAY 😂 #stevecarell #stevecarelledit #despicableme4 #despicableme #fyp #genz #slay #parentsoftiktok #minions #gru @universalpicturesuk @Despicable Me @Simon Harkness | Interviewer

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Here’s the reality: Studies show that when you unplug, your brain actually stops running in panic mode and starts doing something wild: thinking. Neuroscientists call this “default mode network [DMN] activation”; normal people call it “downtime.” It’s when your mind slows down enough to connect random dots, solve problems, and sometimes remember where you left your keys. Sitting in silence for a few minutes a day can lower the stress hormone cortisol, boost creative performance, and improve attention, memory, and cognition. Maybe that’s why zoning out can feel so hard: it’s technically a brain workout.

Here’s what I wish I could tell Gen Z: You don’t even need a TikTok timer and a ring light to experience boredom! If you really want to immerse yourselves in true, soul-cleansing ennui, I invite you to try any of the following (sans iPhone, of course) stimulation-free activities from my childhood: Tag along with your dad to Ace Hardware to compare drill bits. Go wallpaper shopping with your mom. Stare at the ceiling fan until your eyes bleed. Sit through a neighbor’s vacation slideshow. Rewind a cassette tape with a pencil. Flip through a Sears catalog for a few hours. Have a statue contest with your sibling. Count the tiles on the bathroom floor. Read the back of a cereal box until you know it by heart. Spend an afternoon licking S&H Green Stamps and pressing them into little books.

Can you even imagine? No filters, no dopamine, just pure analog suffering personal growth.

Now that’s raw, dog.

DO KIDS EVEN PLAY SPIN THE BOTTLE ANYMORE?

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