Technology distracts us by design.

You've probably heard it said that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Well, it’s not hard to see that many of us have a problem with distraction. And the obvious culprits are technology and social media.

Enter lifescaling, the author’s method for regaining not just your focus but your creativity and purpose, too. Before you can work on your focus, however, you have to understand that this state of distraction is no accident. 

The key message here is: Technology distracts us by design.

Consider the many devices we have at our disposal – and all the apps and social media platforms available through them. The companies behind these have to compete for our attention, and they do this through persuasive design. This is a method of designing products so that they play on our weaknesses and influence our behavior. 

Social media notifications, for example, are persuasive design at work. As humans, we’re wired for social reciprocity, meaning we expect others to respond in kind to our positive actions. Think of how people receive compliments and feel the need to return them. Notifications about “likes” on our social media posts or messages play on that need for reciprocity. When we see them, we’re driven to keep interacting and checking how many likes or messages we’ve received. 

With tactics like this, it’s no wonder we can only go a few minutes at a time before reaching for our phones. But there’s another side to the story. We also welcome the distractions that technology presents us with. When we’re facing difficult tasks, work we don’t enjoy, or issues like anxiety and loneliness, falling into a digital rabbit hole offers a temporary escape.

But whether we’re tricked into distraction or turn to it willingly, there are many negative consequences. 

The main one? We’re constantly switching between our work and the digital world of apps and social media. But our brains have a limited capacity for concentration and productivity. So when we switch tasks or try to do multiple things at once, we’re less likely to do anything well. This leads to wasted time and poor-quality work. It also negatively affects our attention spans and memory, increases stress levels, and makes it harder for us to think creatively.

Thankfully, it’s possible to combat distraction and its impact on our minds. In the following blinks, we’ll learn how.