Boredom has, paradoxically, become quite interesting to academics lately. In early May, London’s Boring Conference celebrated seven years of delighting in dullness. At this event, people flocked to talks about weather, traffic jams, and vending-machine sounds, among other sleep-inducing topics.

        What, exactly, is everybody studying? One widely accepted psychological definition of boredom is “the distasteful experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity.” But how can you quantify a person’s boredom level and compare it with someone else’s? In 1986, psychologists introduced the Boredom Proneness Scale, designed to measure an individual’s overall tendency to feel bored. By contrast, the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale, developed in 2008, measures a person’s feelings of boredom in a given situation.

        Boredom has been linked to behavior issues including inattentive driving, mindless snacking, excessive drinking, and addictive gambling. In fact, many of us would choose pain over boredom. One team of psychologists discovered that two-thirds of men and a quarter of women would rather self-administer electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Researching this phenomenon, another team asked volunteers to watch boring, sad, or neutral films, during which they could self-administer electric shocks. The bored volunteers shocked themselves more and harder than the sad or neutral ones did.

        But boredom isn’t all bad. By encouraging self-reflection and daydreaming, it can spur creativity. An early study gave participants abundant time to complete problem-solving and word-association exercises. Once all the obvious answers were exhausted, participants gave more and more inventive answers to combat boredom. A British study took these findings one step further, asking subjects to complete a creative challenge (coming up with a list of alternative uses for a household item). One group of subjects did a boring activity first, while the others went straight to the creative task. Those whose boredom pumps had been primed were more productive.

        In our always-connected world, boredom may be a hard-to-define state, but it is a fertile one. Watch paint dry or water boil, or at least put away your smartphone for a while, and you might unlock your next big idea.

解析：B。根据题干中的one team of psychologists和their experiment可定位至原文第三段第三句。该句提到，心理学家在实验中发现，三分之二的男性和四分之一的女性宁愿电击自己，也不愿独自坐着思考15分钟。这一发现也呼应了前面一句的“事实上，我们中的许多人宁愿选择疼痛，也不愿意忍受无聊（many of us would choose pain over boredom）。”B项与此内容相符，其中的Many volunteers对应原文第三段第三句中的two-thirds of men and a quarter of women，choose to hurt themselves对应该句中的would rather self-administer electric shocks，endure boredom对应该句中的sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes，故正确答案为B。

错项排除：A项利用原文中出现的watch boring...films和sit alone with their thoughts设置干扰，但原文中提到，在自我电击和独自坐着思考之间做选择的实验与看电影的实验是由两组研究人员进行的两个不同的实验，A项将两个不同的实验内容混为一谈，属于细节拼凑，故排除。原文中只提到三分之二的男性和四分之一的女性宁愿自我电击也不愿独自坐着思考，没有比较男性和女性谁相对不太容易受到无聊的影响，故排除C项。D项利用原文中出现的15 minutes作干扰，但这里说的是很多志愿者宁愿自我电击也不愿独自坐着思考15分钟，并不等同于说志愿者无法忍受超过15分钟的无聊时光，原文中并未提及志愿者忍受无聊的时长上限，故排除D项。