Another disturbing phenomenon that goes with this is the “No one should ever be bored by anything, ever” idea that gets thrown about in the media (particularly advertising). One example was a radio ad for an amusement park. It featured a mom lugging her kids around on errands and having them get progressively more bored and whiny. Then the announcer said (in essence), “Why bother with all that boring stuff when you could be at Six Flags?” The unspoken message was that if a task isn’t just positively riveting, you owe it to yourself to ditch it and find something fun to do. Part of paying attention is self-discipline (I know; I have severe ADHD and I only control it through hard work), and if self-discipline goes out the window, then paying attention becomes a strictly optional activity, relegated only to those things that interest a person. Good luck balancing your checkbook with that behavior pattern in place.
I guess another reason that commercial rankled me was that when I was a kid, my mom kept a tote bag full of puzzles and games in the car for us. If we got bored, we did a word jumble or we played with whoever was in the back seat with us. “Mom, I’m bored!” wasn’t a very productive statement in my house growing up. 
