Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. It's been about a year since the pandemic took over our lives.

For many of us, that has meant a year of broken routines, missed opportunities, and let's

face it, boredom.

So this week, we've decided to play for you an episode from our archive that unpacks

the science of boredom. It features an early appearance from someone who may now be familiar

to you, Angela Duckworth, co-host of our spin-off podcast, No Stupid Questions. This episode

is called Am I Boring You? And it begins right now.

About a hundred years ago, around the time of the First World War, there was a growing

concern in Britain about working conditions, in factories, mines, and elsewhere. Here's

how the historian Anthony Wall described working conditions during the Victorian era.

For industrial workers, the working day meant early starts, long hours, and often physically

demanding labor in conditions that would have challenged even the strongest constitutions.

To start work at 6 a.m., perhaps after walking through sleep or rain, and to continue at

all day, in overheated, drafty, or elementalated workrooms, meant for many, a slow process of

physical decline or a life lived continuously on the brink of exhaustion.

This exhaustion was worrisome for the workers, of course, but also for their employers,

and for Britain, because exhaustion presumably meant lower productivity, and nobody wanted

that.

Oh, Britain forms the Industrial Fatigue Research Board.

That is so British.

Yeah, right. It's soon after the war. And even in its name, you can see the focus is really

on fatigue. They're trying to figure out the limitations of assembly line production

...