ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Culture and Communication
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1578313
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Dark and the Light Side of Gaming (Volume II)View all 7 articles
Bored Gamers: Applying the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) Model of Boredom to Digital Game Selection
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Communication Studies, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
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Communication research has typically examined boredom as a negative emotion characterized by low arousal or understimulation. However, this one-dimensional approach to boredom does not resonate with more recent psychological insights, as summarized in the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model. This model proposes several boredom types based on individuals' attention levels (low versus high cognitive resources) and how meaningful an activity is to them. The model predicts that, depending on the boredom type, individuals switch to either enjoyable or interesting activities to regulate their boredom. Explicating these hypotheses in a communication research context, enjoyable activities could be linked to hedonic and interesting activities to eudaimonic media experiences. Although switching to media seems like an obvious choice when people experience boredom, the MAC model has yet to be empirically tested in a media context. The present study therefore tests these hypotheses in the context of digital games, examining how gaming serves as a positive way to regulate the negative emotion of boredom. An online survey of 581 players showed that 74% of respondents were likely to switch to a digital game while experiencing boredom. Furthermore, bored individuals with low cognitive resources selected games offering hedonic experiences (i.e., fun, psychological detachment, and relaxation), consistent with the MAC model. However, bored individuals with high cognitive resources also preferred games with hedonic experiences over eudaimonic ones (i.e., appreciation, mastery, and control), contradicting our hypotheses. Since few differences in game selection were observed across boredom profiles, we further discuss the MAC model's usefulness in media content selection, the specific context of game selection, and the study's limitations.
Keywords: boredom, Digital Games, eudaimonia, hedonia, Media selection
Received: 17 Feb 2025; Accepted: 04 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Daneels, Poels and Vandebosch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rowan Daneels, Department of Communication Studies, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
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