People have been working on making things addictive / attention getting forever. Sugar? Caffeine? Video games? Back in the day plenty of drugs, including those sold by pharmacists.
Either you have agency or you don't. I for one very much like the idea of someone with some actual expertise in how addictive products are created talking about how to avoid the addiction.
If you don't want to read his stuff - don't. And if you wanted to avoid these issues, even before this book lots of others. One easy one - no TV at home. I don't watch any TV shoes. I don't play any video games. Not sure if that's in the book, but getting outside, getting exercise, sleeping, spending time with partner, no phones at the dinner table (or breakfast or lunch) etc go a long way to just being a bit more distraction free.
Agency means you can decide what you want to do with your day and your life.
To much of anti-addiction / behavior self improvement stuff comes across as just pablum.
Or maybe it's on a scale, where you can do various things to protect yourself, but those require time and energy which are not unlimited.
Things such as no TV -- I would also say no social networks on a phone, ever! -- are obviously good. It is easy to reduce a distraction of something if you can eliminate it from your life completely, without any significant cost. It's like, when you want to get rid of alcoholism, it is easier to avoid pubs completely, rather than trying to regulate how much you consume.
Problem is when you cannot avoid some situations completely. Turning off the internet, forever, would have a negative impact on many people's jobs. And there is a lot of distraction even on Stack Exchange -- if I am looking at an answer of a technical question, why is it also necessary to be notified about hot questions about movies, video games, politics, etc.? (On my home computer, I could install a blocker, but that already requires some skills that many people don't have. On my employer's computer, I am not even allowed to install browser plugins, for security reasons.)
It is an arms race. As people learn to turn off some forms of distraction, experts keep inventing more intrusive ones.
And once you as a teen you have built up these distraction mechanisms in your life, it becomes harder to let go as an adult.
This is a society level problem, to some significant extent.
I'm guessing you get this a lot.
The most useful thing I did was put all my electronic devices in a separate room when going to bed. Before, I would often stay up on my phone until I was seconds away from falling asleep. The first day trying to fall asleep without any distractions was scarily difficult. Just being alone with your own thoughts, worries, stress, etc. can be really uncomfortable. But after getting used to it, not only do I get better sleep, but I think I also have better self-control to resist distractions during the day.
So for anyone looking to reduce distractions, start by removing all distractions when going to sleep. The first few times trying to fall asleep without distractions will probably be harder than you think, but it gets easier and you'll be better for it in the end.
5 minute ASRS screening test here (pdf, not some data harvesting online monstrosity):
https://add.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/adhd-questionnair...
Precisely because you can code 12 hours non-stop, you chances to have undiagnosed ADHD are actually higher.
"Attention Deficit isn't an inability to focus, it's an inability to exert executive control over focus". This is the best ADHD description I have read. Of course, here in HN[1]
Just knowing what you're dealing with is quite useful. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses you must contend with. I learned to harness my random bursts of energy, but also to control their scope.
Some things that helped: progressively removing "noise" from my life, having a maximum number of "in progress" projects, committing to smaller deliverables.
ADHD has a kind of wrong name in that it has "Attention Deficit" when really paying attention is not the problem, regulating attention is the problem.
We often struggle with either paying too little attention or too much attention.
Thanks for your comment. I see this in my son, who shows signs of having ADHD. He is able to hyper focus on areas of interest which seems contrary to having ADHD. Less desired areas of interest are much harder for him to deeply focus. I try to see this as an advantage and hope that someday he will be able to exploit his hyper focus and learn to manage his distracatablity.
Consider that it's difficult to separate ADHD from a lifetime of bad habits and a "lack of willpower". Willpower being brought up in the standard medical context of "the prefontal cortex being able to override other areas of the brain to serve long-term goals and resist impulse."
The spin on that article doesn't quite sit right with me (and note the editor has issued a correction, as well) but there are certainly some things there I'd agree with. Logically, ADHD must be a disorder neither of the individual nor of their environment, but of the interaction between the two that arises when the expectations of society don't match the behaviour of the individual. So whether you should try to 'fix' the individual or society is an ethical question not a scientific one. Practical considerations may lead to 'fixing' the individual with medication, but in some cases a change to their environment may be achievable to the same effect. e.g. an adult with mild to moderate ADHD symptoms may be lucky enough to get a job they're so interested in that they don't have any problems with focus.
I'm also guessing it's not helpful to frame these debates in a binary fashion. All psychological problems exist on a spectrum so there will always be a group in the middle for which e.g. diet or learned coping strategies work well enough. Then there will be a more extreme group for whom those tools fail. And a group in between those two who might struggle along for years looking like they're doing fine, but in the long term burn out in the absence of a comprehensive treatment.
Isn't the "lack of willpower" directly related to the underlying medical condition?
I've personally never been distracted on a dirt bike riding through deep sand, or two pitches up on a trad climb, building something with my hands, dealing with a medical emergency, or diving through kelp fields. But, sitting at a desk job staring down 200 emails and dealing with whatever new bullshit upper management has decided we should be freaked out about that doesn't really have a solution, and, well, the brain tries to wander out the back door. Pretty sure that's a reasonable reaction for my brain. Would I really want the kind of brain that was perfectly happy doing my bullshit job? Naw, I have to drag it kicking and screaming and I wouldn't want it any other way.
This doesn't count for real ADHD. I've had friends that had legit ADHD, and, uh, I wouldn't want to be 2 pitches up on a trad climb with them because they can manage to wander off mentally even in the face of death. It's pretty spectacular. Those people, however didn't select into desk jobs, they went into firefighting and emergency medicine, and special forces and stuff that holds their attention by necessity, and spent every ounce of their free time running, on a bicycle, doing pullups, in crossfit or something to burn off energy.
This above and this:
> Distraction, [...], is a symptom of a problem – not the problem itself.
It sums it all. Once you understand that, there is a new path opening in front of you, leading to a better life.
... Now back to work :)
That forces me to use either the media PC or my laptop if I want to access HN/twitter/reddit.
It works because it puts a breaker in the "I'm a bit bored, I wonder who is wrong on the internet today" loop.
I often romanticize about living a distraction free life. I contemplate the idea to the point of being labeled a luddite by my friends. I dream of being a cool kid that uses a Light Phone (I really want one!). I want to be one of the people in their advertisements that is fully engaged in some activity. I think that if I just threw out all of the distractors and lived a more simple life I would be more present. I sincerely appreciate the authors attempts at scaling back technology in the hopes of living a more present life. I never thought to buy a wordprocessor that was not connected to the internet! This is a man that understands my inner itch at living this minimialist, distraction free, fully engaged presence.
I, like the author, am discovering that I can't buy a Light Phone and then suddenly be fully engaged. I can't throw out all of the technology in the hopes that my enlightened self emerges. The distractors will simply change. The hard work begins when I begin examining the root behind my distraction. What am I running from? Why?
Thank you to the author for reminding me to focus on the root causes of my distractions. Alas, the magical solution to distraction is nothing but an illusion. Maybe I will still buy a Light Phone though :-)
Good.
Further down, pretty reasonable and actionable.
Firefox's (or possibly Safari's) Reading Mode recommended.
Step 1: Don't be on the "less control" side of the "control over attention" bell curve.
Step 2: There is no step 2.
Distractions are not simply, as the author puts it, "your brain ducking challenging feelings". Distraction is your concentration slipping your control. Some people have that control. Others don't. And most lie somewhere in the middle where reducing inputs can help, but your brain isn't solely distracted by external stimuli.
Accept it, work around it, move on. Note that, on the "less control" extreme end of the "control of attention spectrum", working around it may require medication and psychiatric training - CBT - as it describes ADHD.
If there is something important for you you will remember to check for it.
"If it's important, serious, embarrassing, difficult or just uncomfortable, do it later."
Very true, but their designers are accomplice to the crime.
I'm generally a nice guy but I harbor uncharacteristically visceral malice toward the a-hole who deemed it appropriate for my Android to let apps or the OS interrupt me by default. If you're that guy and reading this right now I hope you feel ashamed.
I don't need to know my peasants in your game are idle.
I don't care that the Gmail account I set up for alerting is missing a backup email address.
My bank does NOT need me to check that my contact info is the same as it was a year ago.
Even the OS updates can keep for a few days; I'll check for and apply them on my terms.
And that Samsung Experience one which keeps sprouting up like a hydra head every time you kill it can go to hell [0].
Yes, Google has improved tooling and made it easier to snipe out unwanted notifications with precision (and I truly commend them for that), but I'm deeply concerned by the culture of disrespectful interruption that has normalized in the mobile ecosystem. Out of the box on a fresh install there's still way too much superfluous chuff and it takes month being subjected to it and correcting the behavior before I finally have some level of confidence my phone has been housebroken. It's more painful than teaching a puppy not to crap on the carpet.
And it's spreading to other "smart" devices. My Roomba work me up with a chime at 3am last night to tell me it's out of battery after it got stuck somewhere the previous afternoon. (Turns out she "fell off a cliff" in my single-story apartment).
Vendors: You aren't as important as you think. You really aren't.
I wish Google and Apple let me bill publishers for my attention - maybe a fraction of a cent for every notification that's dismissed without interaction. That might finally incentivize them toward more judicial and thoughtful use of the "poke and prod" finger the platforms granted them.
[0] https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/201141/how-to-re...
The guy you want to be mad at is actually the author of this article! He's the one behind Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. As another comment said, I wonder how much of this is him trying to alleviate his conscience for the world he helped create when he started spreading his addiction causing message across business schools and companies.
I always think that companies that try to persuade me into completing a survey, for their benefit, should compensate me in some way for my time. I never fill out surveys and internally feel a bit peeved when I am asked to complete one. If I called my cable provider and asked them to complete some random task I am pretty sure I know what their response would be.
About "Self-explore" part.
I agree that the identification of internal distractions is important for somebody who wants to be less distracted.
It was easy for me to get distracted to my smartphone, even without notification until I started tracking and thinking about every interaction with it. And I can confirm that when you know the root cause you can prevent it or handle it somehow.
It may sound self-promotional but nevertheless. I created an app(https://acture.app) for tracking smartphone usage intentions for myself. And it really helped me to deal with smartphone overuse(I still overuse on my laptop but that's another history). Every time when I would like to use my phone I make a pause and think about the intention and validating it before using. I was writing this intention right into the app which popup with input form after every unlock(pop up is only on Android, on iOS user have to manually go to the app). I found several usage patterns in my usages and then I created plans for every pattern "How to deal with it". And I don't need to delete all apps from my phone to use my smartphone less, instead, it's a chance to investigate how do I use it and then adapt and get best from these apps. In other words, I created a habit to think and validate my every phone usage intention. E.G it's morning and I picked up my smartphone and I would like to check some tweets and then I got a pop-up window that reminded me to think about my intention and write intention and then I realized that it's morning better to prepare some coffee and go through my morning routine.
Then I shared this app and looks like for some people it works. There is no magic app or one concrete approach on how to identify these triggers. I think it's more about self-monitoring and your desire to change it.
Thanks for post
Works pretty well. No clock is nice too. Unless I check my phone or run the date command, I have no idea what time it is.
Just "setting up" workspaces (linux desktop) correctly helped a lot. For example 1=Terminal,2=Browser, 3=Comms,4=Code... This helps me to better organise my thoughts and all those browser windows !
> This article must not exist.
I guess the website is distractible. And we'll never know the secret!
Edit: only in Safari it's borked.
Maybe reading his article will help, but I'm also feeling quite distractible.
