Distractions & Political Revolutions

How much time are we really spending on our phones? Or even the internet in general? When asked to the average Joe, they’re very likely to say “Oh, not that much!”, because if he admitted to the amount he was really spending, he’d be considered a loser, or someone with no life; even though everyone else has probably got roughly the same amount as him. The average person in the U.S. spends 11+ hours interacting with some form of media, and 4+ hours specifically on our phones alone!

While not always our phones, everyone of avery age group spends their 11 hours of screen time on different platforms. As you can see, people older than 65+ are typically watching TV, and 18-34 year olds are typically on their phones; and far less likely to be watching TV. Our technology can age with/faster us, so it makes sense that younger people would be bored with TV when they have so many other devices to play with, and that older people would be stuck watching TV because that’s what they know and love (but will still tell you to “get off the damn phone!”). No matter what platform, they all suck away our attention; because that’s what their meant to do. Williams believes in the concept of an “attention economy”, where “...the environment in which digital products and services relentlessly compete to capture and exploit our attention. In the attention economy, winning means getting as many people as possible to spend as much time and attention as possible with one’s product or service.” So through history, what were some of the very first attention suckers? Yellow Journalism/Papers (1890s) - Yellow journalism is journalism that is illegitimate and dramatized for the specific purpose of increasing sales. Meant specifically to gain and hold attention until the next issue.

Animal Farm (1945) - While not the oldest in history (the Chinese were the first to invent paper!) Animal Farm demanded the attention of its readers. Innocently enough, it appeared to be a story about a just that: animals on a farm. But really, it was a satirical novel about the state of the Soviet Union, and expressed anti-Stalin/totalitarian rhetoric. Grabbing and holding the attention of people reading this book was important (and controversial) to begin installing some different political rhetoric from the typical propaganda.

The Radio (1920’s) - Though the radio was invented much earlier, it took a while for it to actually gain popularity/be utilized in a productive way (read: used for some kind of gain). It had shared the news as well as some “shows” for entertainment purposes. Many families would gather around to listen, especially younger people. It became important to give up your attention for, and was a social activity. Once people got comfortable with it, the radio went from commercial free, to 1) having commercials or 2) having indirect advertisements (ex: mentioning Coca Cola in a show). A famous example of the importance of the radio is the classic “War of Worlds”, that had people convinced aliens had came to Earth! Television (late 1920’s-Early 1930’s) - While television is still around and lasted a incredibly long run (let's say all the way to the early 2000’s!), it was invented/made popular in the periods I listed. Advertising on television took a bit longer (early 40s) than the radio, but has stuck around ever since then. People (typically youth) were watching TV so much, that many anti-tv propaganda movements were created around it. The attention was unavoidable! Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen as shows had started to get more organized, with regular weekly schedules.

Everything else (Y2K-Current) - Then of course flip phones, smart phones, tablets, etc came about and our attention has been completely shifted to these and our brains are rotting as you read these very words!


Now that we’ve came about some notorious attention suckers (not including gaming devices, and many other versions of print media, etc), let’s talk about distraction.
According to William’s, “functional distractions” can “...make it harder to return your attention to that same place in your environment later..”. A functional distraction is a distraction that causes our attention to be focused to another place.


Back to our example on Animal Farm, a functional distraction does not necessarily always have to be “bad” thing, and can indeed serve a purpose.


The people of the Soviet Union had their attention focused on simply living under the rule of such a totalitarian ruler, that Animal Farm had took their attention off and created a functional distraction; question authority and your place in society. It would be hard to come back from such a bold distraction to live your life the way it was before; with your attention focused on anything but living a day to day life. However, many functional distractions are “bad”. They still serve a purpose and distract with reason, but are not on the deep allegorical level that George Orwell was (though wouldn’t it be neat if a game notification could start a political revolution).


Examples of functional distractions in the things we focus our attention on commonly are notifications, advertisements, etc. Our phones/tablets are most known for this, grabbing our attention so we can stay longer on the website and then we become distracted. Newspapers (like the Yellow Pages) can do this as well, distracting people from war by mentioning another frivolous thing.


The Yellow Page-esque distractions did not end with the error, only we ignore most of them. With the internet, many news stories make it to the forefront; such as Jordyn Woods cheating with Trystin Thompson and destroying her friendship with a Kar-Jenner. That makes it to the front page, while our concentration camp-like stations for immigrants and the separation of immigrant children from their families are put on a back burner. Or how we all know about the Malia Obama “scandal” (drinking? At 20! Obviously she’ll be an alcoholic in no time!), and not that are planet is dying.


Functional distractions and attention as well as the devices that create them are not going to go away anytime soon. They’ll always be here, and we’re welcoming them with open arms; as we willingly spend nearly half our day observing media.