There’s something about watching a young person tap furiously at their phone screen, frustrated when an app takes more than two seconds to load, that makes me chuckle. Not in a mocking way, but with a gentle recognition of just how much has changed.

I grew up in an era where making a phone call required a particular kind of patience. You’d slide your finger into that little hole on the rotary dial, pull it all the way around to the metal stop, and then wait for it to wind its way back before dialing the next number.

Mess up on the last digit? Start over from the beginning.

That small act of waiting, repeated countless times throughout my childhood and young adulthood, taught me something I didn’t fully appreciate until much later: the ability to delay gratification and tolerate moments of nothing happening.

The psychology behind patience and delayed gratification

What I experienced with that rotary phone wasn’t just nostalgia fuel. It was training my brain in a skill that psychologists now recognize as crucial for mental health and long-term success.

Delayed gratification involves forgoing a smaller, immediate pleasure to achieve a larger or more enduring benefit in the future. Neuroscience research reveals that dopaminergic neurons in the brain increase activity during waiting periods, helping individuals resist impulsivity and wait for better rewards down the line.

This ability to wait affects everything from academic success to financial decisions to relationship stability. People who can delay gratification tend to report higher wellbeing, self-esteem, and more productive ways of responding to anger and other provocations.

The modern world, though? It’s engineered for the opposite.

How instant technology reshapes our brains

I’m not one of those people who thinks everything was better in the old days. Modern technology has given us incredible gifts—I video chat with my grandchildren who live across the country, for heaven’s sake. That’s magic my younger self couldn’t have imagined.

But there’s a trade-off we’re only beginning to understand.

Those who use mobile technology more frequently are less likely to delay gratification, with impulse control serving as a significant mediator of this relationship. In other words, the more we’re exposed to instant results, the harder it becomes to wait for anything.

The average American checks their smartphone once every six-and-a-half minutes—that’s roughly 150 times each day. Each check reinforces the expectation that answers, entertainment, and connection should arrive immediately.

My grandkids can stream any movie ever made in seconds, have food delivered to their door with a few taps, and get answers to any question faster than I can finish asking it. Wonderful conveniences, all of them. But they’re growing up without those built-in moments of enforced waiting that were just part of life when I was young.

The lost art of tolerating boredom

Related to patience is another skill that seems to be eroding: the ability to simply be bored without immediately reaching for a distraction.

As a kid, boredom was just part of the deal. Long car rides meant staring out the window, letting your mind wander wherever it wanted to go. Waiting rooms? You sat with your thoughts. Rainy days required figuring out something to do with what you had on hand.

Now? The constant availability of instant gratification can reduce our tolerance for slower, less stimulating activities, creating a cycle where we become bored more quickly and seek increasingly stimulating content to alleviate it.

But here’s what research has shown: boredom can improve mental health by giving overloaded brains a chance to relax and alleviate stress. Those moments when your mind wanders aren’t wasted time—they’re when creativity and problem-solving emerge, as the wandering mind finds new ways of thinking.

Some of my best ideas for woodworking projects have come during my daily walks with Lottie, when I’m just letting my mind drift. Not scrolling, not consuming, just… thinking.

What we’re losing (and gaining)

I don’t want to sound like I’m pining for the good old days or suggesting we all throw away our smartphones and go back to rotary phones. That would be silly, and I genuinely appreciate the conveniences of modern life.

But I do think we’re losing something important in the trade.

Many older adults may have not developed constant “checking” or “fear of missing out” habits and may be more focused on the present. That’s not because we’re somehow better people—it’s because we were formed in an era that simply required more waiting.

Starting tasks meant accepting that results wouldn’t come immediately. Discomfort had to be tolerated. Not every moment needed to be filled with stimulation, and we learned to live with that reality.

Those aren’t just quaint skills from a bygone era. They’re the foundation of mental resilience, creativity, and the ability to pursue long-term goals when short-term distractions are everywhere.

Teaching patience in an impatient world

So what do we do with this knowledge? I’ve thought about this a lot, especially watching my grandchildren grow up in such a different world than I did.

The solution isn’t to reject technology or pretend we can recreate the past. But we can be intentional about creating spaces for waiting, for boredom, for the kind of patience that doesn’t come naturally in a world of instant everything.

Here’s where I’d start:

Let kids be bored sometimes. When children learn to endure boredom at a young age, it becomes great preparation for developing self-control skills—the ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Model patience yourself. If you’re constantly checking your phone or expressing frustration at minor delays, you’re teaching that intolerance to everyone around you.

Create tech-free zones or times. Studies show that digital detoxes positively affect well-being and mental health, with improvements comparable to cognitive-behavioral therapy and larger than typical effects of antidepressants in clinical trials.

Value the process, not just the outcome. Whether it’s cooking a meal from scratch or working on a long-term project, there’s something worthwhile in the journey itself.

Final thoughts

That rotary phone taught me to wait, one slow revolution at a time. It wasn’t the only thing that shaped my capacity for patience, but it represented a world that simply moved at a different pace.

We don’t need to go backward. What we do need is to recognize what we’re losing in our rush forward, and make conscious choices about the mental habits we want to cultivate in ourselves and the next generation.

Patience isn’t just about tolerating delays. It’s about having the mental space to think deeply, create meaningfully, and pursue goals that take time to achieve. It’s about being present in moments that aren’t instantly gratifying but turn out to be profoundly important.

The world will keep getting faster. The question is whether we’ll preserve the internal capacity to slow down when it matters most.