I would always have a copy of The Economist, New Yorker, NYRB, LRB or similar when I was travelling around London, so avoiding boredom was a priority for me even then. Much more restful to read a physical magazine though, and the only thing to distract me from an article was other articles in the magazine or my surroundings rather than "maybe that comment on Hacker News has a few more upvotes now".