Chronic Boredom as Engagement-Deficit Wrong Attractor: The Meaning Vacuum, Stimulus-Seeking Loop, and the Return to Intrinsic Engagement

Boredom is an adaptive signal of under-engagement. Chronic boredom is a wrong attractor W_boredom in which the person's engagement system is organized around persistent meaning vacuum and attention dysregulation. We apply the Displacement Framework to formalize chronic boredom. The intrinsic engagement ground state S0_engage is defined as Csikszentmihalyi's flow state: challenge-skill balance, autotelic activity, absorbed attention.

W_boredom is maintained through two interlocking mechanisms: the meaning vacuum (Frankl's existential vacuum — boredom as signal of meaning-absence that, unfilled, deepens the basin) and the stimulus-seeking loop (Zuckerman 1979 — boredom drives impulsive sensation-seeking that produces temporary relief then habituation then deeper boredom). Nine formal propositions cover: S0_engage as intrinsic engagement ground state (P1), W_boredom as engagement-deficit wrong attractor with Eastwood attentional theory and Heidegger's Langeweile (P2), the meaning vacuum mechanism (P3), the stimulus-seeking loop and boredom-aggression link (P4), attention dysregulation as core mechanism with ADHD overlap (P5), trait boredom proneness as landscape modifier (P6), state-to-trait transition through chronic under-stimulating environments (P7), cumulative Phi_boredom across engagement, behavioral, relational, and meaning domains (P8), and return paths including flow cultivation, logotherapy, mindful attention training, and engagement scheduling (P9).