Digital Distraction Cures: How to Reduce Your Digital Interference

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The use of mobile devices and smartphones is not a new phenomenon; in fact, it has been around for quite some time now. Today, these devices are an integral part of our lives. As we constantly interact with other people, attach ourselves to their devices, and as often miss out on in-person interactions, we are often losing out on the benefits of having real human contact.

This is why experts from the Center for Digital Distraction Research have coined the term Social Media Distraction. What exactly is Social Media Distraction? Simply put, this is when you become socially connected with your smartphone use and completely miss out on the real world. In fact, studies have shown that we are easily distracted by what we are doing on our cell phones; one recent study revealed that we get distracted when eating our favourite meal, or viewing some kind of interesting video on the phone.

So how does all of this relate to digital distraction? Consider that we used to have a television in our home. We would sit there, enjoy our show, and spend an hour or two catching up on the news. Then, as late as two in the afternoon, we could sit back and enjoy another show that was not quite as depressing as our previous one. When we wanted to stay up all night reading stories, we turned on the television or downloaded another app that provided us with entertainment.

People love phone more than people

There is nothing wrong with this. After all, it is supposed to be a distraction. However, with the rise of so many apps over the last few years, we are forced to multitask. Now, instead of catching up with friends on their iPhones, we are forced to use multiple apps at once. This not only increases the amount of digital distraction but also reduces the amount of time we have available to be productive.

Notifications are one of the biggest sources of digital distraction. Let's say you have five notifications on your iPhone, all telling you to do something. You might spend a few minutes reading these messages before you check your email or reply to one. However, if you had chosen to ignore all of those notifications, you would have spent those five minutes reading and replying to emails, or perhaps setting up a new appointment. If you are like most people, however, you read your notifications at work. When these notifications from work pile up and you have less time, you end up missing work and wasting hours of valuable work hours catching up on your tasks, just to resolve a single error on your social media page.

Digital distraction doesn't even have to come in the form of an email in most cases. Text messaging is another huge source of digital distraction. Most people will check their mobile phone when they receive a text message. When they receive another text message with a subject similar to the one they sent earlier, they get distracted again and may miss their original message. A quick trick to keep from being distracted by text messaging while you work is to set aside a specific time each day to send a unique message. You can then dedicate that time to one task such as checking your Facebook or Twitter for the day or checking an app on your phone.

People Take photos of Food to post online

Yet another source of digital distraction is your push notifications. These notifications, which come from several different services including Apple, Gmail, Google, Facebook, and several others, can quickly become a source of digital distraction if you are constantly receiving these. Push notifications sometimes come with exciting news stories or announcements of various sales and offers. While you may really want to take advantage of these offers, you may end up ignoring them and diverting your attention from the tasks at hand. If you have a dedicated task list on your phone, pulling out your smartphone to check your notifications can easily lead to diverting your attention away from what you should be working on.

Fortunately, there is a way to both handle your notifications and keep your brain healthy by using the dopamine reward system. Dopamine is present in the brain and helps us focus. When we are actively paying attention to something, we are more likely to focus on that task and make it a priority. The challenge is that our constant pushes and pulls from social media can make it difficult to focus on one thing for any length of time, leading to a great deal of distraction.