# 56 The distraction society

By Damon Young

The BBC News Magazine

7 May 2010

I put down my pen, opened my laptop to write this, and instantly received two e-mails.

Then my smartphone rang - it had the e-mails too. Without thinking, I clicked the inbox: one e-mail about a conference I'm organising, another from my father.

I automatically replied to my colleague, and clicked on my dad's embedded link - photographs from the Hubble space telescope. Breathtaking glowing spirals, vibrant gaseous pillars, and...

Wait. What was I doing? Oh, right. Writing for the BBC on technology and distraction.

I'm not alone in my diversions. According to a 2007 study by Loughborough University academic, Thomas Jackson, most of us reply to e-mails immediately - many within six seconds. Then it takes at least a minute to recover our thoughts. Not long after, more e-mails arrive, with more checking, and so on.

As a result of this constant stimulus, we can become habituated. Instead of focusing on our work or home life, we're waiting for the next "hit": clicking on "new mail" every few minutes. King's College research commissioned by Hewlett Packard suggested that this e-mail preoccupation was reducing the mental sharpness of volunteers.

This combination of distraction and addiction also occurs with the internet. Psychologists call it a "variable interval reinforcement schedule".

'Gratifying buzz'

As with gambling, the internet doesn't always lead to a "hit" - the predictable pleasure of novelty, recognition or humour. So we keep chatting, typing and trawling until it's two in the morning, our lunch break's finished or we realise dinner's burning. And we still haven't enjoyed the gratifying buzz we sought.

Harmless entertainments like gaming can also slide from distraction to pathology. Counsellor Peter Smith, from Broadway Lodge rehabilitation unit in Somerset, said some gamers "get so obsessed… they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state".

It's tempting to conclude that technology is to blame for all this; that we're being assimilated by malicious machines, like Star Trek's Borg. And today's technologies certainly can deplete our psychological resources.

But distraction is nothing new. Over a century ago, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described his harassed peers. "One thinks with a watch in one's hand," he wrote in 1887, "even as one eats one's midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market".

Yet Nietzsche didn't blame clocks or markets. "We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life," he wrote in his Untimely Meditations, "because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself."

In other words, the technologies were certainly aiding distractions - but they weren't providing the urge. This, said Nietzsche, was human, all-too-human.

Centuries earlier, philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal put this very succinctly. "The sole cause of man's unhappiness," he wrote, "is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room."

For Pascal, like Nietzsche, man was a restless, jittery creature, always looking for distractions from life. If we've no smartphones and online social networking, there's gossip, gambling or booze.

Confusion

At distraction's heart aren't silicon chips, but an unwillingness to confront very human issues: pain, boredom, anxiety. Distraction certainly has neurophysiological underpinnings - physical bottlenecks of sense, response and cognition. But these often work because we allow ourselves to be managed by machines' rhythms and logic.

Work is alienating, and silly YouTube links provide respite. Marriage is stressful, and internet forums offer reprieve from embarrassing conversations. We're exhausted, and television gives our minds familiar, pre-programmed idling. In each case, we're seeking some consolation, asylum or easy pleasure.

Unfortunately these diversions are less rewarding than they appear. As we've seen, unrestrained internet browsing, e-mail and gaming can encourage compulsion or confusion.

In 2002, psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi also noted the dangers of excessive television. "Survey participants commonly reflect," he wrote in Scientific American, "that television has somehow absorbed or sucked out their energy, leaving them depleted." Other research reported by Csikszentmihalyi suggested diminished attention, problem-solving and patience.

Rather than cultivating our faculties, these distractions can weaken them, leaving us unproductive, muddled or fettered. They are truly distractions, from the word's Latin root: to "draw away" or "pull asunder". They wrench us from what's best in ourselves.

Switch technologies

To avoid this, we needn't ditch technology (a romantic pipe dream). Instead, we can remind ourselves of what it's for: enriching and amplifying our potencies.

Happily, the solution isn't always radical. It might require timetabling: I'm trying to avoid e-mail in the workday, only checking in the morning and at night. I set my own cadence, rather than obeying the inbox's beeps.

Switching technologies can also help. I use a blog for creative writing, rather than Twitter for quick updates. As philosopher RG Collingwood argued, expressive writing can aid emotional clarity - something hard for me to achieve in 140 characters.

Instead of lethargically play-fighting with Tekken 6, I prefer real martial arts, like Judo or Karate. As Csikszentmihalyi noted, sports lead to "improvements in mood" missed with sedentary playing.

These might not work for everyone - there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Some of us require new jobs or relationships, others a little more patience or willpower. But we should do what technology cannot, that is to honestly, lucidly decide what's most valuable for life.

For me right now, this means turning off my gadgets, and grabbing my silent, unhyperlinked fountain pen. Alone with ink and paper, I can stay quietly in my room.