If there’s a “war for our attention” – as we’re often told – our role often seems to be that of collaborators with the enemy.

Distraction escape

In a recent article, Oliver Burkeman offers us an interesting point of view on why the social media distraction is not a war against the big players but a war against ourselves. Today, we have so much more information about how those platforms use our attention as a business model that we can’t only blame the system. In fact, you can complain as much as you want but in the end you are denying the fact that you can have full control over it. You can choose who you’re following, move these apps out of your home screen, shut off their notifications or even better, try to understand what you’re trying to escape by regularly going for this primitive and time consuming distraction. Oliver explains that we are some kind of « collaborators with the enemy » because we often uses our social feed as a way to escape a negative, stressful or challenging situation. But as Oliver reminds us: « Stop expecting hard, important, meaningful things to feel constantly comfortable and pleasant. Consider the possibility that mild discomfort – butterflies in the stomach, a sense of difficulty, a moment of boredom – might simply be the price of doing things you care about. » This article is definitely worth a read!