One dreary day over the winter break, having spent a ludicrous amount of time looking for books to buy with my Christmas gift cards, I happened to stumble upon the title Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal. This title immediately caught my attention because, as any overwhelmed college student may admit, everyday distractions are endless; it seems as if I can never escape the temptation of checking my texts every ten seconds or Googling a word that I can’t figure out. While at first I was expecting the book to be a stereotypical demonization of technology (those Millennials and their damn phones, am I right?), I found that the book provides fascinating insight on how we may peacefully coexist with technology without letting it take over our lives.
As I get older I find that my attitude towards technology becomes increasingly cynical. While my friends and I anxiously scroll through social media feeds instead of doing homework and my little brother stays glued to his Playstation instead of eating dinner with the family, it becomes easy for blame my lost time on Instagram for sneaking interesting ads into my feed or Snapchat for keeping me glued to the app with streaks. However, one of Eyal’s first and most crucial points in Indistractable is that this defeatist attitude has generally does more harm to us than good. Technology, he explains, is merely a “proximate cause” of the “root issue” of distraction that originates within individuals. Thus, all of the power to change our habits lies in our hands; if we’re constantly pointing fingers at technology, then we only are fostering the feeling that we lack control over our own lives. In order for us to take charge of our time and attention, Eyal stresses, we must acknowledge that technology is always going to be addicting and that it will always do its best to reel us in. It is only when we accept that we are personally responsible for managing distractions that we will ever be able to manage them and take ownership of our lives.
Taking ownership of our time, Indistractable stresses, necessitates substantial changes in the way we perceive ourselves, for we have far more power in our lives than we often think. Now, this isn’t a mere blind optimism on Eyal’s part. In fact, he pulls in a multitude of psychological research to provide ground to his wisdom. The studies Indistractable utilizes focus on every corner of the human mind from the psychology of willpower to the value of daily schedules, thereby demonstrating how shifting our mindset and habits every day can keep us on track and distraction-free. With these changes we will not only be more productive on a regular basis, but we will also be able to form and maintain deeper relationships with the people most important to us in our lives.
Now, for a few different reasons I have a difficult time totally accepting all of Eyal’s philosophy. While we are most certainly responsible for our lives and controlling our distractions, I don’t necessarily believe that technology should be let off the hook so easily. Sure, it’s always going to be distracting us, but is that necessarily right? There’s a reason that the Facebook and Twitter apps are blue and that Snapchat has best friend listings; they know what catches our attention most quickly and, as Indistractable confesses, are thus exploiting our very human psychological weaknesses. With this comes many deeper questions regarding the ethics of technology and marketing: should tech companies be allowed to manipulate human beings to this extent? At what point does it become cruel to be dragging people into this endless pit of distraction and addiction?
While I don’t entirely subscribe to Eyal’s dismissiveness of accountability in technology and marketing, I nevertheless find Indistractable to be incredibly valuable for the empowering message it delivers to its readers, that we are all capable of overcoming distractions in our everyday lives. Recognizing that I do not ever run out of willpower has given me greater strength to ignore Instagram notifications while I’m supposed to be reading and to not eat that ice cream in Alliot that always makes me stomach hurt. Similarly, scheduling weekly Facetime calls with my girlfriend, which gives us an allotted time to be together without distractions, has made communication far easier in what is otherwise a challenging long distance relationship. I have begun to adopt a more optimistic outlook on my life and capabilities, and I can feel distractions becoming easier for me to manage every day. This, however, is only the beginning, and these small steps in my life are but a tiny portion of Nir Eyal’s philosophy. For anybody else who struggles like me to find focus and order, I would fully recommend giving Indistractable a shot.
Image Source: Arab News https://www.arabnews.com/node/1557756/lifestyle