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Boredom Is Spreading the Coronavirus
People who are rarely bored seem to have an easier time sticking to social distancing behaviors, new research suggests
This past spring, as art museums across the country were shuttering to help slow the spread of Covid-19, the Ryland Museum was opening up. The socially distanced museum launched in April in the hallway of a San Jose apartment building. Its first exhibition, open to a select audience — the building’s residents — was an adaptation of the artist Brian D. Collier’s work Very Small Objects and featured humdrum items such as a bit of lint, an old beam, and a piece of glass.
The co-curator was a grade-school-aged child named Erik whom the museum’s founder, his neighbor Amy Brown, had enlisted by writing him a note. After schools had closed, she’d noticed that Erik had taken to all but living in a tree in the building’s courtyard. “He seemed really lonely. All the kids were in their own apartments, and they weren’t mixing,” says Brown, who like Erik, found herself with some time on her hands. She had worked as an administrative assistant at a local children’s museum but was laid off shortly after it closed because of Covid-19, though financially she’s still okay.
