ABSTRACT
The Conclusion elaborates on the author’s background, professional dualism, clinical observations, and reasons for writing a cross-cultural study on boredom. It discusses methodological considerations and the nuances of comparative historical analysis and data-choice. The Conclusion suggests that this study contributes to our knowledge of the sociology of emotion, particularly to the cultural boundaries of emotional experience, as well as to social theory, cultural and cognitive sociology, sociolinguistics, anomie, gender and sexuality, symbolic interactionism, mental health, modernity, art, political sociology, the sociology of everyday experience, and to an emerging literature on the sociology of time, time use, and waiting. Additionally, my findings suggest that although a changing sensory environment is critical for healthy mental and emotional functioning, meaning-making and timespan remain more important in determining subjective experience. The Conclusion ends with emphasizing the historically revolutionary and empowering qualities of individualism and self-drive, and the impossibility of dialing the clocks to premodernity and with emphasizing the fruition of developing classic sociological theory for understanding ‘the everyday’ of modern society of the 20th and 21st centuries.
