In the past several years, the narratives about screen addiction are becoming more prevalent. The pandemic undoubtedly accelerated reliance on screens in all aspects of our lives. Apart from being the source of constant flow of information, the screen is now a major medium for interactions among family members and friends, teachers and students, and employees, clients, and partners. Essentially, screen technology has taken over our lives.
While we can see our family and friends in person, online playdates and
visits are trending. While students are back in school face-to-face, many schools continue offering online classes and use technology in the classroom. While many employees are encouraged to go back to working in the office to promote collaboration and water fountain conversations that are so important for driving creativity and innovation, there is also pushback forcing companies to embrace the hybrid workplace environment or even resort to a 100% virtual arrangement to save on real estate.
Unfortunately, screens can also prevent us from achieving our goals. That is why Nir Eyal’s book, co-written with his wife Julie Li-Eyal,
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life is so timely. Ironically, his first book,
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, explained the mechanism behind forming habits.
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In today’s world, the amount of information available to us at our fingertips is so vast that becoming distracted now is easier than ever.[/perfectpullquote]
Indistractable is a sequel in which Nir Eyal sets out to help us stick to our goals and better our lives by applying a four-part model he calls the Indistractable Model. In the first part, Eyal teaches us to identify and manage internal triggers—psychological discomforts that lead us off track. That leads to the importance of making time for things we really want and like to do and to plan our time with intention that results in traction—the opposite of distraction. In the third part he examines unwanted external triggers, such as phone notifications, that interfere with our productivity and degrade our well-being. Finally, he discusses using pre-commitment in the form of pre-agreed upon pacts to combat distraction.
The author then goes on to demonstrate how to apply the model to three scenarios: making workplaces indistractable, raising indistractable kids, and fostering indisitractable relationships.
In today’s world, according to Eyal, the amount of information available to us at our fingertips is so vast that becoming distracted now is easier than ever. This wealth of available information comes at a high cost—a poverty of attention. On the other hand, being the social creatures that we are, human beings need social interactions and friendships to live happy fulfilling lives, and the current epidemic of mental and physical health in the form of obesity, loneliness, and depression is another symptom of our distraction. Friendships and healthy habits cannot be cultivated if we are constantly distracted. Eyal’s point is that instead of letting distractions take control of ourselves, we need to take control of our distractions.
Interestingly, Eyal was personally invested in writing
Indistractable because of his own challenges with focus, attention, and distractibility. His personal experiences and experimentations make the book all the more authentic and convincing. Eyal admits to initially setting out to remove online technology from his life—the “digital detox” so many of us are contemplating trying. He went as far as switching to an “old-school flip phone,” purchasing a “subscription to the print edition of a newspaper,” and buying a “1990s word processor without an internet connection” only to realize that he ended up replacing one set of distractions with another.
Throughout the book, Eyal shares his realizations about the relationship with his wife who used to be responsible for “65 percent of the family’s child-care responsibilities” without him being aware of it and confesses to “having a love affair” with his gadgets. At the same time, he acknowledges his frustrations with his daughter’s screen overuse and temptations to destroy her digital device thinking that “tech is the source of the trouble with kids these days.” Who hasn’t been there?
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Simply telling neurodivergent teens that they are living their life all wrong does not work and only creates more resistance and animosity.[/perfectpullquote]
While I am skeptical about fighting technology with technology, I do think that the suggestions he provides in the book about how to hack back devices are helpful. Ranging from uninstalling distracting applications from the phone and turning off all notifications to installing free browser extensions that scrub suggested videos and ads along the side of the YouTube screen, I can see these hacks coming in handy and preventing some users from religiously responding to each notification or watching one video after another for hours at a time.
Our motivation to lose ourselves in tech, says Eyal, is driven by the desire to escape pain and discomfort. If the behavior causes us pain, we avoid it. If it provides relief, we are likely to continue to engage in it to escape discomfort. When the distracting behavior becomes addictive, however, all we are doing is trying to escape the pain and discomfort caused by some underlying problem.
When screens become a consolation technique and means for escaping a lack of intellectual stimulation, taking control of this addictive behavior becomes nearly impossible. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) individuals produce too little dopamine and are constantly craving it. Screens provide the necessary stimulation to those who need constant novelty and engagement. This is such a common and overarching problem in the neurodiverse population that I wish there was a section of the book dedicated to this discussion.
I wish that in addition to providing explanations behind our addictive behaviors and tips on how to “correct” them, Eyal would have also provided a path for understanding that the problem exists in the first place. Neurodivergent teenagers often fail to see that something is wrong either due to the rigidity in their views and inability to envision a more satisfying way of life, a lack of awareness, or inexperience and immaturity. Simply telling them that they are living their life all wrong does not work and only creates more resistance and animosity.
As the last step of his Indistractable Model, Nir Eyal offers a set of tips for keeping distractions out via precommitments and pacts. Precommitments help us abide by the decisions we have made in advance. In terms of pacts, Eyal distinguishes three: An
effort pact makes unwanted behaviors difficult to do; a
price pact adds a cost to getting distracted; and an
identity pact pre-commits to a self-image. In my personal experience with a neurodivergent son, however,
any pact would simply cause him more anxiety.
Recent research studies have suggested that the prefrontal cortex, responsible for an individual’s ability to regulate as well as other executive functions, is one of the last areas of the brain to develop. In neurodivergent individuals, prefrontal cortex development is delayed in general. These developmental processes during puberty need to be taken into consideration when we guide our children through their formative years and help them learn how to navigate our complex digital world through acquiring the skills and resiliency necessary to control distractions.
The reality is that devices and screens are here to stay, and conducting meetings between team members across the globe, attending conferences, taking classes, and communicating with friends will have to involve them whether we like it or not. Instead of trying to reach the unattainable goal of device-free meetings, schools, and households, we need to take the some of the tips from Eyal’s Indistractable Model and use them to learn how to be smart and intentional about using our devices for work, school, socialization, and entertainment. Ultimately, it is up to us to control the different aspects of our lives, even when they are all happening in the home.
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Yekaterina (Katrina) O’Neil is a homeschooling mom by day, a doctoral student by night, and a cybersecurity professional by trade. The mom of two 2e kids in middle and high school, she began homeschooling them after public school turned out not to be a fit. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science & Engineering from UC San Diego, and a Certificate in 2e Education from BGS.
