Gen Z is now trying a new trend called the “do nothing challenge” on TikTok. It is a simple yet strangely hard experiment and requires a person to sit still and do nothing. It will allow them to not have any phone or a snack, or even reading.
Videos of people timing themselves in silence have racked up millions of views. This is part of a TikTok trend that pushes against constant online stimulation and asks participants to sit with their own thoughts for a set time.
New TikTok trend wants Gen Z to ‘do nothing’
During the new TikTok trend where young people do nothing, a person sits in a plain room while a large timer ticks down. The lengths vary, and each of them sits as long as its capacity allows. The time lapse is proof that they had struck it out.
Some of the users, after going through the challenge, claimed that the exercise felt like a reset for their brains. It helped them with their fractured attention spans, and one user even explained that the challenge is harder than it sounds.
Mia Ristaino, who is 21 right now and studying in Texas, expressed after the challenge, “I feel like I always have something to do or something on the TV in the background. A lot of times, I honestly will listen to my textbooks or record myself with my notes, and I’ll play that while I’m cooking or cleaning. And so whenever things are quiet, it’s very weird for me. I want to work on my attention span. I want to work on just being present in the moment.”
Gloria Mark, the author of the book Attention Span, said that the impulse behind the videos is not surprising. She called the trend a version of digital detox and compared it to mindfulness. However, she wanted the TikTok trend to feel less like a punishment and more like a reward.
She said, “Boredom sounds to most people like it’s unbearable. When people are in solitary confinement, the punishment is actually the boredom. I would instead frame this in a positive way and say that when you sit without your device, whether you’re looking at a wall or sitting in a room, it gives you an opportunity to learn something about yourself. You can come up with ideas. You can make discoveries.”
