As a child in the 90s, I remember Saturday and Sunday afternoons being incredibly boring if we didn’t go out. TV was shit (still is), and on rainy afternoons you were basically locked at home.
By the late 90s, at age 10, with no internet access in my county, I was mapping ways to beat the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. I remember scheming for hours, using Farore’s Wind to take me to the beginning of the dungeon and jumping to the platform on the 2nd floor. This way, I was not using the only key I had on the middle pillar, which is what almost everyone got stuck on.
But yeah, I remember the tail-end of this at that time and starting a whole new game to try this out. And it worked. Still proud of 10 year old me. It’s interesting but I hadn’t felt boredom in a really long time.
Yeah, for decades I’ve heard that theory too. I’ve always thought of it as an urban myth.