Why do you get so tired in a museum?

Monday 17 October 2022, 22:11 by Elvira Smit | 4,509 views | 6 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

It happens to me every time I visit a (photography) museum: after less than an hour, I am overcome by an endless kind of tiredness that is hard to put into words.

I wander past the works, but nothing interests me anymore. Strangely enough, I feel energetic again as soon as I am standing on the pavement.

Why do you get tired in a museum, and am I the only one?

Definitely not, as I discovered after a digital search. It is a phenomenon! There is a reason museum benches are always occupied. But why?

Research from 1916

The first research into Museum Fatigue dates back to 1916. American behavioural researcher Benjamin Gilman had the same question as I did.

Gilman gave his subjects a questionnaire, which was actually more like a treasure hunt. To answer the questions, it was necessary to study the works of art very closely. Meanwhile, Gilman secretly took photographs of his subjects:


At the time, museums displayed their works at awkward heights. And all that constant bending, crouching and leaning forwards did indeed result in very tired subjects, according to Gilman's research.

Not a particularly groundbreaking conclusion. Besides, almost everything is now displayed at eye level in museums. And we are still tired. Or at least I am.

Attention fatigue

A museum visit is, I think, more of a mental than a physical ordeal. After all, we walk and wander around all day. But really paying attention to something is something we normally do at fairly long intervals.

Most of the day, you are in a familiar environment. You drive along familiar routes and talk to people you know. Few stimuli demand an exceptional amount of attention from you.

But that changes in a museum. There you see art, and it is usually difficult to understand. As soon as you see it, you are faced with a barrage of questions. You then desperately search for the answers in the complicated texts that are often displayed next to it.

Your attention muscle slackens because of an overload of new information that fits into no frame of reference.

Tired of reptiles

Even without those sometimes irritating signs, the decline in attention can be measured, as research into the behaviour of zoo visitors shows.

In the reptile house at Birmingham Zoo, the creatures receive an overwhelming amount of attention at the entrance. But if the reptile is positioned near the exit, most people walk past the enclosure with a vacant stare.

After the whole layout was mirrored, the same effect was measured. So it was not the appearance of the creatures, but the visitor's attention span.

The remedy

The solution is simple. Your attention span is finite, so you need to use it sparingly. Think of it as a little bucket of attention that you have to give away.

So do not blindly start your visit where the museum tells you to start. Study the museum layout before entering a room. Decide what interests you and go there straight away.

Work through the rooms in order of importance to you. If you still become endlessly tired halfway through, sit down on a bench. Because this groundbreaking research shows that it helps you rest: Seating & Sitting, an observational study.

Mentally too. A top-notch discovery.

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