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| Illustration: Tim Bradford |
Digital technology has become an indispensible part of our daily lives and many argue that distraction is the price of our high-tech world, but Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of The Distraction Addiction, says that’s wrong. He believes that we need to retake control of our relationship with technology and learn to use it in ways that allow us to be more mindful, efficient and productive
At its simplest, distraction occurs when you should be focusing your attention on a specific task, but some other task or thought keeps you from staying focused. Now there are times when it’s perfectly fine to let your thoughts take over. In fact, our brains are well designed for mind wandering; distraction, however, is less positive.
We originally imagined that technology would make us smarter, more focused and efficient, but it seems to be doing the opposite and challenging our capacity to focus and our ability to be productive. Studies have shown that many of us check our email 50 times a day and we have around 150 interactions with our phones. Nobody designed our email to be that interesting, but human beings like novelty; we feel excited when we receive a new message and look for that kind of stimulation by constantly checking our mail.
In other cases, distraction is very much a product of design, and games and media companies like Buzzfeed have learned to design their apps and interactions in a way that captures and commoditises our attention. One very simple example is a smartphone game called Drawsome. It automatically begins a new round so there is no natural way to end the game; if you want to quit the game, you have to quit on your friends. Humans are social animals and this sort of design cue and social obligation keeps us engaged and therefore playing, whether we realise it or not.
Until very recently, we interacted with technology to do what we wanted to do; now the technology is smart and connected enough to control us.
This was feature I wrote for Reflect, the business magazine of Swiss-based financial Equatex. Launched last year, the magazine is a quarterly, 20-page broadsheet, consisting of five in-depth long-form features, all collaboratively written by White Light Media with an expert from a specific field. The world is awash with information and as a result, there is a growing demand for packages of carefully selected ‘brain food’ that people can dip into for relevant and intelligent content. As well as ghost-writing features, I edit and project manage the magazine.
Read the rest of the feature at www.equatex.com/en/article/fighting-digital-distraction/
