Modern Distractions: An Exploration of the Phenomenon
After going through iterations on the possible topics to come on, and after checking YouTube/Insta for the fifth time, while some music or something other is playing in the background, suddenly a thought came to mind: modern distractions. As I was working through job “chores”, and telling colleagues of mine how I am spending three days without my phone, because it was not working and I patiently waited for it to be repaired, a colleague of mine asked how did it feel without phone, without the distractions, I replied normal, because I still had access to certain things via other means (mainly my laptop) but yes it was inconvenient.
Then I realised it was not exactly the means, but it was something else.
Now, I am not trying to point towards something here, but trying to explore the concept within a deadline (submission).
Here, I am going to talk about some individuals that you might have already heard of, like naval (it’s a small and viral world) and probably will also bring in some articles. So, let’s dive in.
Before that, whatever is said here is taken with the help of our Google friend, if something I said here is not exactly meant that way, you know who to blame, I am just a Hermes.
Naval terms it as a modern struggle. The big companies are trying to weaponize the platforms to drive in attention, in the form of entertainment, information or via food, etc, trying to make us their loyal fans. Sort of like being addicted to mindless consumption, Zombie like? From Zombie, I remember my class on Zombies in critical traditions, where zombies were introduced in one chapter, and the professor drew a parallel to modern zombies.
But then comes the question of the form of distractions. There can be sophisticated forms of distractions like believing that you are actually doing some useful work, and some straightforward ones like in the phone 24*7 or bingeing on news and getting annoyed at something that is emotionally triggering.
Switching from what to why, a little bit.
Distractions can happen, according to a Forbes article published on Feb 11, 2020, because we want to avoid the reality, the discomfort, the pain. Filling in the despair, basically. Talking about distraction from reality and seeking comfort, there is a manga called Tokyo Ghost, which I came across via consuming Tim Ferriss’ content. The manga revolved around a girl with a guy being clocked in the device, and she trying to separate him and his device. Didn’t read the manga, but the concept seemed interesting. But only if being distracted worked, to be fair, it works for a while. However, it just leads to a cycle of distractions in between or for straight one hour, not feeling particularly better than before, back to the same feeling, except for an addition in my life, now I know how the cat looked cute in that video.
I don’t want to dwell on the how to control part, because the methods and the tips and tricks are available online, and is not interesting to me to list in the processes, but yes some would say to stay away from the distraction or to have another device, or to quantify the time or to let the impulse pass, I would say go ahead and watch the cat video, life is too short to miss it.
