I think I've reached the point in my life where there's a realisation that being 'bored' is a healthy state. As with everything, balance is important, but I think relatively large swathes of time in your day where you've "nothing to do" allow your internal algorithms to calm down and maybe even for something deeper to surface though. If you are reading this rather than scrolling through a feed of content that an algorithm has put before you because it knows you love it, maybe you have too?
I think I'd maybe go further than just having nothing to do and specify nothing 'exciting' to do. I'm taking a pop at cheap dopamine and yeah that includes the 'always on' lifestyle we have now with social media and apps and.. yeah I've turned into my dad. However, what we've done is engineered our way out of being bored, our brain loves it, but it shortcuts the need to think ahead. The 'joy' is on tap, and it's low effort. That sounds great, but it means that the real 'happiness' takes a back seat to instant, infinite, 'pleasure'. It makes the mundane stuff we need to do in order to make it through life extra mundane, but I find it actually makes what we enjoyed previously as hobbies or pass-times now fall flat. They require 'too much time' or 'too much effort' to provide the same dopamine return as a few taps on our black mirrors does.
This same mechanism is responsible for many of our human 'vices', it's not just tech. Diet is another manifestation of this problem for me, eating stuff that I enjoy in favour of stuff that I need as fuel. Moderation is required but we've gamed the system against ourselves, and because it's profitable there's a lot of time and effort spent on keeping you plugged in.
So, to keep myself true and understand how all of this works for me, but also to maybe start to expose my 'journey' (jees that word has so many horrid corporate connotations) so that others can maybe relate and realise they aren't alone, maybe as far as gathering shared insights. I'm going to start dumping it in a 'public friendly' manner here. And see where we go.