Concluding Some Thoughts About Distraction

[If you've followed along with the Distraction posts up to this point, congratulations! The conclusion is here. And thanks for reading!]

Previously, I dichotomized distraction into two subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. Now, I want to draw back out to that overarching super-umbrella called distraction—in all its diverse forms. What is the point of distraction? I’m sure there are a multitude of completely plausible answers to this question. Perhaps some would say that it is an innocuous and necessary part of life, that all human beings at pretty much all times in history have engaged in some form of distraction. Maybe it purely comes down to the neuroscience of it all: our brains are just wired for distraction. Some might argue that it is impossible to live life completely without distractions. And all of these answers might be true. But bouncing around in my (all too often distracted) little brain is the notion that distraction has factored into the timeless course of evolution as a survival mechanism. A survival mechanism that evolved primarily in response to the development of consciousness.

Somewhere along the lines of our evolution into homo sapiens, our brains developed the capacity for self-awareness. Not being an evolutionary biologist or psychologist myself, I am only left to speculate when and how this came to be. But I think that it is pretty safe to say that if you trace our evolution back far enough that you will witness a form of primate that did not possess what we would today call consciousness. Now obviously, as with all evolution, the change did not occur overnight. The primordial primate did not go to sleep one night unaware of itself in any meaningful way and wake up the next morning with a fully developed concept of self. More than likely, the development of consciousness evolved over many, many years, and is most likely still evolving today. Again, as with all evolution, the catalyst to develop this change came about in response to environmental situations. So it can be safely assumed that we as a species developed consciousness as some sort of survival mechanism. As most of us would agree (I assume), consciousness brings all sorts of positives. It is a necessary element that allows for us as humans to achieve all of those characteristics that set us apart from the rest of the natural world, specifically the capacity for advanced rational thought. It allows for us to have a self-concept and to understand ourselves and how it (the self) relates to other selves. It allows for self-awareness, abstract thought, introspection, perception, reflection, individuality, and a lot more. 

I have no idea whether the development of consciousness is merely one of the many parts of our evolving ability for rational thought, or whether consciousness was a link in the chain that led to the further development of rational thinking, or maybe it’s both: a kind of symbiotic process.  Nonetheless, it seems that the continual evolution of both consciousness and rational thought reached a point where consciousness evolved past the point of utility. This theory (if you can call it that), namely that consciousness was some sort of “mistake” in evolution, has its fair share of supporters—perhaps most recently/famously the pessimist/anti-natalist detective in the first season of True Detective by the name of Rust Cohle. For those of  you who watched season one of TD, you’ll be familiar with this quote; for those of you who didn’t, just imagine sexy/emaciated Matthew Mcconaughey delivering the lines in aloof, southern fashion:

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

I don’t know if I necessarily buy the notion of consciousness as an illusion. And I’m not sure if I would go ahead and label the whole of consciousness as a “mistake” as some have called it. But I do think that there is some plausibility to the idea that consciousness evolved past a point where it was useful to our survival as a species, and actually toward a place that is threatening to our survival as a species. When you combine the capacity for continually advancing forms of cognition with likewise continually evolving consciousness, it is literally only a matter of time until we human beings figure out that we are extremely mortal, fragile, and fickle creatures that exist for an infinitesimally short amount of time on an earth where many billions of humans just like us have already lived and perished, in a solar system that is a mote in a galaxy that is a speck in the universe. Truthfully, we are pretty insignificant in the scope of eternal time and space. The awareness of ourselves, combined with the awareness of that tiny place our self has in the huge world--and to an infinitely larger degree the timeless universe--is a prime recipe for an existential crisis.
 
I assume that existential crises are not necessarily accommodating to the necessity of survival. What’s the point of things like reproduction? Or why struggle so hard to survive in a callous, cold, chaotic, uncaring universe? Consciousness + rational thought + the reality of our existential precariousness = a poisonous concoction that is antithetical to survival.
 
Don’t worry though. I haven’t hopped on the Cohle-train of organized self-extinction. Rather than signing up for cooperative self-annihilation as an answer to the “problem” of consciousness, I think that evolution already took care of it and is taking care of it.
 
Where consciousness gives way to existential crisis and panic, distraction is introduced as the mollifying antidote to the poisonous concoction just mentioned. Distraction is basically the reaction or countermeasure to an evolution of consciousness that started to become adversarial to survival. The more we distract ourselves--the more we lose ourselves in distraction--the less conscious we become. The more distracted we are, the more we are able to fulfill our special mandate: to continue surviving. We watch TV, we eat, we Tweet, we poop, we game, we propagate. No problems. Perhaps, some point in the future distraction will outpace its usefulness to our survival and a resulting counter swing with consciousness will again ensue. But for now, we live in an age of distraction.        

Some Thoughts About Distraction (Part V)

(If you haven't read part IV yet, scroll down and read that first.)

What drives this desire for distraction via the transposing of the self? Previously, I talked about how idle distraction serves as a type of anesthetic to our ineffectual selves. Here, distraction as transposing of self is an avenue for self-forgetting or self-escapism. Similar to idle distraction, what we are attempting to escape is our sense of--or the very reality of--our ineffectualness, inadequacy, and defects. How many people in your life (whom you know well) are pillars of fortitude, security, self-confidence, self-love, and identity? I am not saying that self-efficacious people do not exist in the real world. Just that it is extremely rare to come across these kinds of people. The truly cynical version of myself would say that the wholly self-efficacious person is just an illusion and that perhaps it is only a function of not knowing the person well enough. If you are one of these truly self-efficacious people, then congratulations, and please write a book about how to be you.
It is terribly difficult to become a stable, self-affirming human being. So many things could go awry in our upbringing--imperfections of rearing either by commission or omission. On an even less controllable level, we do not get to choose our environment or our particular culture until we reach an age where we are quasi-independent and then we are already so immersed in it that we either cannot escape it or we don’t even notice it (Like a fish’s conceptualization of water [cf. “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace]). Even more outside of our control is the macro culture in which we operate. In a culture that is always offering and demanding more and better and prettier and faster and stronger and skinnier, how in the hell are we supposed to mature into stable and content human beings? Is it really so hard to understand why so many of us feel deeply flawed? We are like flowers expected to blossom impressively and unceasingly while subsisting only on a diet of brackish water, and then castigated when we fail to meet the impossible expectations.    
Operating daily in this environment with such a deep sense of deficiency inexorably leads to some form of self-loathing. This is painful. When you combine the painful self-loathing with the sense or actuality of ineffectualness then the resulting condition is often one of helplessness and hopelessness. We feel deeply flawed and wish to change but have neither the power nor the ability to do so. It seems like common sense, therefore, that we clamor to escape this condition—this self—as constantly as we can. We fear that to continue to struggle in this state will invariably lead to a reinforcement of our deficiency and consequently of our hopelessness.      
In what ways is it carried out?  “The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves,” writes Eric Hoffer, “the greater is our desire to be like others” (True Believer, p. 99). This latent, or in some cases manifest, dissatisfaction with ourselves fuels the desire for escape. The two predominant ways that we transpose (i.e. escape) ourselves are displacement and projection. With displacement, we attempt to offload the undesirable and unseemly parts of ourselves by supplanting them with the identity, features, or characteristics of another. The more this other is (over)abundant with that which we are lacking, the greater is the displacement. This is why it is no coincidence that celebrities are so obsessed over by the masses. They are, or at least are perceived to be, the platonic ideals of beauty, charisma, power, confidence, and intellect. They so completely embody all those things that we so woefully lack that the pull toward displacement is as natural but also as strong as a small meteorite toward a giant planet (was going to say star but that’d be too punny).
Although this kind of displacement occurs most obviously within this realm, it is not completely contained to celebrity worship. More subtle and routine displacement takes place on a daily basis with other “normal” human beings. The level of displacement is proportional to the degree to which the other embodies that which we lack. It happens in “real time” with coworkers, friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. But today it mostly transpires in the digital world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. And this is where it intersects with that other avenue of transposing: projection.
Where displacement is the substitution of desirable aspects of others for undesirable aspects of the self, projection is the broadcasting of the idealized self to others. Now, although I am obviously not an expert on the history of this behavior, I feel relatively confident in presuming that some form of this projection has occurred as long as we’ve been hominids that walk upright and gather together into groups. It makes sense that we would project a certain type of ourselves when out in public that would be quite different from the private self. Not many people would feel comfortable interacting with the scruffy, disheveled, basketball-shorts-with-no-underwear-and-shirtless me that is my private self. So when I go out I need to present myself in a halfway acceptable fashion. This does not happen only with regard to our physical appearance (although that’s a large part of it), but also with our personality.
Unless I’m surrounded by people that I feel completely comfortable with, then the self that I am presenting is in some way contrived--either to be more affable, humorous, serious, professional, competent, or whatever. In other words, we suppress the aspects of the self that may seem less desirable either to ourselves or to others while simultaneously projecting the aspects of ourselves that may seem desirable. We do not limit ourselves to projecting features of ourselves that we might actually contain. Often, we attempt to project a certain characteristic so that people believe that we contain this feature when we actually do not. However, to anyone else who is halfway perceptive this will usually come across as pretentious and inauthentic.  
With social media, the opportunities for projection of the idealized self have added a completely new world to the typical scenarios of the past. We still have to project our idealized self in the “real world” when we go to work or to the movies or wherever. But that is only contained to the relatively few people we interact with face-to-face on a weekly basis: family, friends, coworkers, strangers. By comparison, our digital selves have abundantly more “connections” than our actual world could ever comprise. With the amplified audience comes the increased capacity for validation via “Likes” and comments.
This does not exist in the real world. When we walk into our workplaces in the morning we don’t get bombarded with compliments; when we say something in a meeting we don’t receive a litany of praises. More likely than not, we’re barely noticed because, like us, everyone else is too concerned with their own self. Additionally, our digital selves are constantly “on,” continuously projecting that idealized version of ourselves that was once just confined to our public interactions. Lastly, the projecting of an idealized self on social media is much simpler in comparison to the public self projection. In the real world, I have to actually control my emotions and urges and behaviors and speech, I have to interact with potentially unexpected people or situations, I have to adapt to different situations and act accordingly. Not so much with the digital world. The blend of audience/validation capacity, continuous broadcasting, and comparative ease make the digital world extremely attractive to the idealized self.
The digital world is unrivaled in its capacity to allow individuals to construct and maintain a projection of their idealized self. I can exaggerate the features of myself that I accept, inject characteristics about myself that I lack but want to project, and control my environment much more than I can in my real life. Look at all the pictures of me doing fun things in fun places with all these fun people. Check out this cool picture I took of this great meal I ate for my 29th birthday. How many Likes will this status update get?
However, this fertile digital ground for idealized-self projection can be a proverbial two-edged sword due to the fact that it is a panoply of other idealized selves. Everyone else is also broadcasting how adventurous or cool or interesting or perfect their lives are. The interchange of all these idealized digital selves can then interact with that other form of self-transposing—displacement—to create a projection/displacement competition. When I am confronted with your idealized self, suddenly my idealized self does not seem so ideal anymore; this then leads to a surfacing of the actual/flawed self and a form of displacement ensues. However, instead of the full-bore substitution that takes place with celebrities, a different procedure materializes.
When displacement occurs with the famous, the perceived gap between the first-rate representation of features in the celebrity that we grievously lack can easily engender substitution due to the chasm of difference that exists between myself and the celebrity. But this chasm does not exist between me and a “peer” in the digital world because I perceive myself to be more-or-less equal with the other people in my “social network.” When a peer appears to contain an exceptional characteristic superior to my own it is met with jealousy and envy—not substitution—because to substitute would be a tacit admission of the peer’s fundamental superiority. Therefore, rather than displace myself via substitution, I displace by projecting a more exaggerated version of my idealized self. Others in my digital world then view this exaggerated idealized self and a similar sequence ensues.       
With our idealized digital selves, we can forget or at least temporarily escape our flawed selves by eliminating anything other than flattering pictures, pruning out everything that is banal about our lives, and repressing all defects. We escape our ineffectual selves by way of transposing (projecting) ourselves into an idealized self. Because we can so effectively escape our deficient selves by projecting this idealized self, and because the digital self offers such an alluring alternative to the milieu of “real life,” our digital selves have become increasingly vital to our overall identities. When the actual self is experienced as flawed and ineffectual, yet the digital self can be projected as an ideal, the resulting tide is one away from enrichment of the actual self toward transposing to the digital self.             
Which finally brings us back to the Niagara Falls story. Everyone arriving at the Falls and instantly snapping a selfie and posting it to the digital world is a symptom of self-transposing. The Falls do not matter to our actual selves. Of what nourishment is a natural wonder to a self that is vapid? This is not so different from watering empty flower pots. No, what matters--what is vital--is the projection of this “experience” as part of the idealized self. This experience means nothing unless we can broadcast it to others as part of our idealized self. We are constantly striving not to enrich ourselves through the enjoyment of life, but rather as our own PR firm marketing us to the digital world.

Some Thoughts About Distraction (Part IV)

I recently traveled to Niagara Falls with my wife for our fifth wedding anniversary. Those of you who have been fortunate enough to visit Niagara Falls will nod in agreement at this understatement: it is an astonishing spectacle to behold. Even all the touristy, commercialized, kitschy crap that surrounds the Falls isn’t enough to deaden the experience. Such immense natural power and beauty is a wonderful affront to the senses.  And truly, the Falls are something that you experience with all of your senses. First off, the tremendous rumble of the Falls makes itself heard from miles around; what starts out as a faint hum grows with intensity to a crashing roar as you draw nearer. The Falls are felt in both the percussive reverberations and the vaporized mist that emanate from the colossal force of it all. The Falls can be smelled, and therefore also tasted, in the mist-ified H2O molecules and fluttering oxygen molecules that carry with them the carbon erosion sediment that is also seen in the greenish tint to the raging water. The visual display is remarkable and mesmerizing and hypnotizing and befuddling and awe-inspiring and I won’t ruin it by trying to describe it all. The calculus of all the sensual experiences combines to become something truly greater than the sum of the separate parts, each sense enhancing the other to produce what is a magnificent encounter.     
When you add to this overloading sensory experience some of the facts about Niagara Falls, it is no wonder why it is such an astounding sight to witness. The Horseshoe Falls, which is the unquestioned main event of Niagara Falls (sorry American and Bridal Veil falls), covers a span of nearly 2,200 feet and is 173 feet tall at its crest. Nearly 682,000 gallons of water flow over the edge every second, which turns out to be close to 59 billion gallons of water every day. To try to put that in perspective, enough water spills over Horseshoe Falls in one day to fill almost 700 Rose Bowl Stadiums (which can seat over 90,000 people). Those nearly 682,000 gallons of water falling 170 feet at the speed of gravity is enough power to create over 2,500 tons of force. That is roughly the equivalent of dropping 63 fully loaded semi-trucks from a 16-story building every second.  
Now, you may be wondering at this point, “Well, Craig, that’s all well and good and everything, but what the hell does this have to do with anything?” or “When did this become a tourist piece about Niagara Falls?” Both very good questions. I bring this all up to  highlight the discrepancy between the kind of enrapture that the Falls demands just in its stature, and how it is actually experienced by homo sapien moderna. And the indictment, if there is any, of this behavior is such that I would be among the first getting subpoenaed. So I’m in no way licensed to sit in judgment from my proverbial high horse.
It would really be pleasant and encouraging if upon witnessing Niagara Falls we simply absorbed the spectacle in a few moments of mindful amazement. Unfortunately this is not the case. As we saunter up to the Falls, it seems that our first instinct is not to marvel in slack-mouthed wonder at the remarkable scene, but rather to instantly take a selfie in front of it, hopefully aided by the selfie-enhancing “selfie-stick,” and then directly post it to all social media outlets. This is then followed by slouching over our screens as we scan for likes and views and comments, all the while with backs turned to one of the Seven Wonders of the natural world. We gape at our screens completely transfixed, rather than be mesmerized by what is thundering uproariously behind our backs. This example of how we experience Niagara Falls is a corollary of the transposed self.  A symptom of the yearning for self-forgetting. I’ll get back to the Niagara Falls story a little later, but before I do that I should talk about all this “transposed self” business and what it has to do with distraction.  
As I mentioned in previous post(s), I have split distraction into two large subcategories: idle distraction and distraction as transposing of self. The two categories bear the primary similarity in that they both generate from the estrangement we feel toward our ineffectual selves and serve the purpose of abetting self-forgetting—this could be said of distraction in all of its forms. While idle distraction is primarily an anesthetic to the self vis-à-vis entertainment, distraction as transposing of self is the escape from the self by way of projection (of the “idealized self”) and displacement (of the unwanted self). But more on that later.
The avenues that we can travel down to distract ourselves in this way are abundant. Indeed, many of the pathways cannot be completely separated from idle distractions and perhaps belong to both categories. Numerous forms of entertainment—whether in film, TV, literature, etc.—although maybe considered idle, are most certainly also prime distraction avenues for their projection and displacement of self opportunities. Are not the most popular and profitable movies those that feature heroes or princesses or some sort of imitation of these ideals? The characters in the prodigiously popular movies are continually some sort of unrealistic assortment of characteristics: strength, beauty, honor,  talent, humor, popularity, intelligence, (sex) appeal, bravery, manliness, self-security, and so on. There is no coincidence here. There exists a nationwide (and worldwide) obsession with celebrities—not only the TV shows and movies in which they appear, but also (if not especially) their personal lives. The countless paparazzi and gossip rags and gossip shows and gossip sites. Is there any distinction in modern day America between a gossip show and a news show? I could expand on this (but won’t because time lazy) but I’m not going to so that I can continue along the pattern that I set up for myself: that is, looking at distraction primarily through the lens of (digital) screens.
The opportunities for distraction by the transposing of self in our screen-mediated world are staggering both in the sheer multiplicity of options as well as the volume of time lost. One of the biggest time leeches of our contemporary lives is the world of social media. I haven’t researched this so please do your due diligence before trusting me on this: but I’m pretty confident that a new social media app/site is invented every second. 
Okay, perhaps I’m off by a few seconds or so, but it sure seems like it’s true. Please witness the following list of social media apps/sites that are in existence today (this is just a small sampling): Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Renren (popular in China), Google+, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tinder, Grindr, Pinterest, Twoo, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, WhatsApp, vk.com, Meetup, Medium, Classmates.com, Chat Roulette, Foursquare, Goodreads, Myspace, MyLife, Netlog, Skyrock, WeeWorld, We Heart It, Yik Yak, Kik, and Academia.edu (for a more comprehensive list, check Wikipedia). I am fairly certain that you can find a social media app/site catering to literally anything. Only want to communicate in emojis with Scandinavian Furry fanatics? Well, there’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (figuratively, of course).Want to digitally mingle solely with people who share your given name? There’s a social media site out there with your name written on it (literally this time)!
Our obsession with social media is about as restrained as a Jimmy Buffet emblazoned, tie-dye, knee-length nightie at a black tie gala. The use of social media platforms have been steadily on the rise since their inception, and gained and continue to gain tremendous popularity the more portable technology becomes (source). According to recent research, the average American spends about two hours every day on some sort of social network. This figure includes those individuals who do not use social media at all (I’m not convinced these people are real…kind of like unicorns). So, when you take those unicorns out, the figure jumps up to an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day per person (source). Something also to consider about this research is that it is conducted in the style of self-report, which can be susceptible to the so-called “social desirability bias,” which basically means that people may tweak their responses in a way that seems more acceptable. My assumption here--based off what I would probably do in the situation--is that the person being surveyed most likely would not want to come to grips with the fact that they spend four hours every day on social networks, even less so admit this out loud to the surveyor, and therefore conveniently reduces it down to a more reasonable sounding “about 2 hours.” So, as far as I am concerned, that average figure is actually higher than what is reported (I know that’s not fair but whatevs). Even if we accept that average figure as accurate, it is still an astounding amount of time spent on social media. Sleep: Work: TV: Social-network are basically the four pieces of the pie chart of our lives.
The way we consume social media has become increasingly mobile and therefore increasingly ubiquitous in our everyday lives. What once required sitting down at a desk and clicking around on a desktop computer or at least lounging on a couch with a laptop now requires only a phone or a watch or a bracelet. Our mobile technology is always with us and therefore by extension so is our Facebook. Nowadays, most of the time we spend on social media is spent on some form of mobile technology (source). And this trend only continues to rise.
The mobility of our social media is concerning for numerous reasons, but the impact it has on our (non)focused driving habits elicits a digital double-take. The days of the Snapchatting driver unwittingly running over the Twittering pedestrian are upon us. My quick search of the internet could not yield any results for a database that records these double-whammy (pun kind of intended) incidents, but I’m sure it’s either out there and I failed to find it or it will be created in short order. According to a study completed by AT&T, a whopping 70% of people use their smartphones while driving. Some of that is for texting and e-mailing, but a sizable and growing chunk is used on--you guessed it--social sites. More specifically, “27 percent of drivers report checking Facebook, 14 percent admit to tweeting, another 14 percent to using Instagram,...and 11 percent to checking Snapchat” while driving. But wait, there’s more: “17 percent have taken selfies while driving and another 10 percent engage in some sort of video chat” (source). Again, this is a self-report study so it’s only the people who are willing to admit that they SWD (selfie-while-driving). What could be more important than Facebooking your driving experience in real time? Answer: nothing.  
Speaking of Facebook, that heavyweight champion of social networks, here are some figures to rattle your brain. There are about 1.3 billion active Facebook users around the globe, which is roughly the population of China. The average user spends about 40 minutes on Facebook per day (source), making it far-and-away the largest colonizer of our (digital) social selves. In just 60 seconds on Facebook there are roughly 3 million likes, 240,000 images uploaded, and 3.25 million items shared (source). And just one poke (I’m guessing).
Although Facebook is obviously the behemoth older brother, some of the younger sibs aren’t exactly scrawny runts themselves. On an average day there are about 500 million Tweets, 400 million Snapchat “snaps,” as well as 70 million photos uploaded and 2.5 billion likes on Instagram. Taken separately, these figures are already incomprehensible so I’m not even going to try to combine them. But, the way we consume these social media sites tends to be an amalgamation of several different sites. We upload an Instagram here, send a quick Snapchat there, and then Like a popular article on our Facebook feed that we never read. We devour our social media like we consume our Golden Corral.

In my next post I'll share my thoughts about how this type of distraction plays out and why it is so prevalent.

Some Thoughts About Distraction (part III)

 [If you're reading this part without reading the last post, stop. Go back and read the last post. Please :) ]

So what is the deal with idle distraction? Why so much of it? What purpose is it serving? What need is it meeting? I believe that the answer(s) to these questions are quite varied, complex, and subtle. And I certainly do not believe that I know the answers to these questions in any comprehensive way. But I think that part of the answer may have something to do with the following: idle distractions allow the estranged self to be anesthetized in the losing of attention/focus/intention in being entertained. Now, there are a couple parts in that sentence that warrant further attention and explanation, starting with this talk about the “estranged self.”
The “self” is a rather nebulous concept, metaphysically speaking. Something that has been the subject of a lot of research and philosophizing and theorizing. So rather than attempt to describe/summarize (then get bogged down, fail, and cry) such things as consciousness, ego, and personality, I will merely encourage you to visit the Wikipedia page of each of these respective subjects. Boom! That was easy.
As I am sure many of you are aware, it can be quite a challenge to grow up and develop into a healthy, grounded, well-rounded, secure adult in the U.S. Obviously, the U.S. is not some third world country where basic human necessities like clean water, dependable food sources, and a competent health care system—to name a few—are nowhere to be found. And I do not mean to conflate the two. The U.S. definitely has its own issues with poverty, health care, education, and the like; but it would not be a stretch to say that the U.S. is and has been #blessed in a materialistic sense. Largest GDP in the world by a sizable difference, local economies (i.e. New York City) that rival those of entire countries, one of the top 5 countries in the world in average monthly wages as well as disposable income per capita (source). I could go on. Still, the material riches of the U.S. hardly guarantees the ability of an individual to develop a secure, authentic self. In fact, I think it could be a detriment. More on that later.
The influences of capitalism and consumerism that pervade nearly every aspect of our society are about as conducive to healthy self-development as binge watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The convergence of the material abundance of the U.S. with the cultural forces of consumerism and capitalism combine to produce a destructive brew. From birth, we are constantly bombarded with messages and advertisements that tell us we need to buy more, be more, have more. Having “enough” is such a hazy concept that we don’t even bother to consider what it is or when or how we attain it or why we should in the first place. This relationship to never having enough material things gives way to relating to ourselves in the same way. Nothing we ever say or do or are will ever be enough. The consumeristic and capitalistic elements in U.S. culture first manufacture an environment in which nothing is ever enough--you always need more, you are insatiable--yet we strive for that one great thing that will leave us feeling satiated and complete; then we are told endlessly how the next car, or mascara, or shoes, or clothes is that very thing that will complete us. Said another way, the materialism/consumerism/capitalism of our culture first infects us with the disease of never having or being enough, and then dangles all these bright and shiny objects in front of us as the cure. But this is merely an illusion. Almost immediately after we’ve attained the thing that promised to make us feel complete does it start to lose its allure. Within a week we’ve forgotten how hopeful we were about the thing and we’re back to where we started--staring at ads with our vapid selves.
The abundance of material capital in the U.S. fosters the impression that perhaps we “should” feel happier, more secure in ourselves, and more in tune with our authentic selves. But by and large we don’t. We feel unhappy, insecure, and estranged from ourselves. And the gaping juxtaposition of where we believe we “should” be and where we actually are only amplifies our sense ineffectiveness and uselessness. So what do we do with these feelings of misery, despair, angst, and ineptitude? Well, just spin the Wheel of Escapes to find out! Some of the possible answers are: 

>We medicate it: In the past 30 days, more than 70 million Americans have used a prescription antidepressant, pain medication, anxiety medication, sleep medication, or some combination thereof  (source). Although only accounting for 5% of the global population, Americans consume 80% of the world’s pain pills (source) and more than half of all prescription drugs (source).

>We eat it: Two out of every three Americans are overweight. More specifically, a staggering 33% of Americans are obese (source). Compare that to the global percentage of people who are either overweight or obese, which is 37% (source), and it’s obvious that America is definitely dominating the worldwide pie eating contest. Finally, the average American consumes approximately 3,770 calories everyday, the most out of any country in the world (source), and is close to double the daily recommended amount. 

>We drink it: About 1 out of every 12 Americans is an alcoholic, and more than half of all adult Americans have a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking (source). About 1 out of every 6 Americans are binge drinkers (source). In 2014, Americans spent close to $175 billion on alcohol (source), which is about the same as the gross domestic products of Ecuador and Sri Lanka combined. 

>We drug it: Approximately 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 has used illicit drugs in the past 30 days (source). In the span of a decade (2000 to 2010), Americans spent a trillion dollars on illicit substances (source). Perhaps not surprisingly, the United States is the worldwide leader in illegal drug use (source).

>We buy it: Us Americans like to spend money and buy stuff. It is quite literally one of the things we do best. Overall, in 2013 Americans spent about 11.5 trillion dollars buying stuff. This is roughly three times more than the second country on this list, China, which has a population more than four times as large as ours (source). The average  household in the United States spent about $54,000 on stuff in 2014 (source); which, in true American fashion, is $3,000 more than the average household income in 2014 (source). We are good at debt.


>We screw it: Porn is very popular in the US, where Americans account for more than 50% of global online porn revenue (source). In just this exact second, there are about 30,000 people in the US viewing porn (source), and over 40 million Americans visit porn sites regularly (source). Overall, Americans spend about 13 billion dollars on porn every year (source), which is roughly the same amount of money that we spend on ice cream every year (source). Coincidence? Probably.
>We game it: (see section on gaming)


>We watch it: (see section on TV)


Good luck with your spin!


I don’t mean to oversimplify things and vilify American consumerism and capitalism as the sole instigating factors that lead to the production of vapid, ineffectual selves. Surely the influences and factors are myriad and complex. But I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that they factor into the discussion considerably. It is a struggle to exist while feeling ineffectual and useless. As I said earlier, operating within a prosperous and free society connotes seemingly endless possibilities. But this only heightens the feelings of ineptness when our attempts have been rebuffed. Or perhaps we have given up the attempting entirely. To paraphrase Eric Hoffer in True Believer: Of what use is freedom if the self is ineffectual? The continual struggle of the ineffectual self within the illusory realm of “possibilities” and “prosperities,” combined with the consumeristic/capitalistic culture of nothing ever being good enough, would doubtlessly lead to numerous failures—whether real, imagined, or anticipated—and to the compounding of a self that feels inept and vapid. Doesn’t it follow that the incessant exposure to this environment would lead us to not only be estranged from ourselves, but to actually pursue estrangement as well? So, rather than be repeatedly confronted with our sense of futility, we seek out further estrangement from ourselves in order to forget.
Which finally brings me to this point: idle distractions—such as TV and video gaming—function as an anesthetic from our ineffectual selves. The ceaseless staring at screens provides a pathway for self-forgetting. Our near constant distraction by way of entertainment shifts our attention/focus/intention from ourselves and therefore amplifies our self-amnesia. This further exacerbates our self-estrangement, thereby creating a mutually self-perpetuating cycle.

If you have actually managed to successfully read these posts up until this point, thank you! Next post I'll start talking about the other side of the distraction binary: the transposing of the self. This is where it gets real interesting (shameless teaser).

Some Thoughts About Distraction (Part II)

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, one of the predominant ways that we lose track of ourselves is through idle distraction. But what exactly makes something “idle distraction?” How is it different from other forms of distraction? Could not all distraction be considered “idle?” Broadly speaking, I consider idle distraction to be the kinds of activities that we mindlessly enter into as a result of boredom or discomfort or some sort of derivative of these states. These kinds of activities do not force us to think in a very meaningful way. They tend to induce a type of detachment from the world around us as well as from ourselves. And in the modern age, they tend to be dominated by screens. That is why I have chosen to focus on only two specific modes of idle distraction in this section; because by all accounts they are two of the chief avenues for idle distraction that exist today. In this post, I'll start by sharing some astonishing facts about the prevalence of what I consider to be two of the main ways we idly distract ourselves. Then in the next post, I'll try to tackle why so much idle distraction exists.

It is truly mind-boggling how many opportunities for idle distraction exist today. The industry of idle distraction is thriving, and that is an understatement. Consider the myriad ways we can and do distract ourselves on a daily basis. To try to detail each and every one of these options would take forever. So, instead I will focus on two titanic industries within this category that I believe to be emblematic of what I’m talking about here. The two industries are games (specifically video games, as long as they occur on some form of screen) and TV.  

Games: A cursory search of “games” on my iPhone “app store” yields 466,713 results. Seven of the 10 “top grossing” apps in the app store are games. If we just look at the top three app games—Clash of Clans, Game of War, and Candy Crush--the details are quite astonishing. Now bear in mind that each of these games are free to download. So the app developers, presumptively, do not earn any money from the apps being downloaded to your mobile device. However, it is estimated that each of these three games earn well over $1,000,000 per day. You might be wondering: How do they earn so much money by offering a “free” product? Well, the entirety of the sales are from “in-game purchases” that users buy to enhance their game playing ability, or something like that. Stuck on that pesky level 269 in Candy Crush? Buy a Lollipop Hammer for only $1.99! Want to destroy your opponent with even more ferocity in Clash of Clans? Well, this Chest of Gems only costs $99.99 and then you can buy all the Wizards and Giants you need to be victorious! It is predicted that mobile gaming app revenue will reach 46 billion dollars by 2016 (source). And this is just the mobile gaming industry! This does not include console-based gaming like Xbox or Playstation or computer games.
If the money figures weren’t enough evidence of just how massively enthralled we are by games, the amount of time that is spent playing video games is quite staggering.  According to Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken, we spend 3 billion hours every week playing video games around the world. That is enough hours of video game playing in one week to fill up all the hours in over 8 million years.  More than 500 million people around the world play video games for an hour or more every day.  In the U.S. alone, about 183 million people, or close to 57% of the population, play at least an hour of video games every day.
 
TV:  Although gaming is quite astonishing in its grasp on our collective attention spans and is on a near meteoric rise in popularity, it still does not approach that titan of idle distraction: the television. Since the TV became commercially available in the early to mid-20th century, nothing has distracted us more thoroughly than the television. Obviously, TV has evolved into many different forms since its inception. We now have TV in such disparate pathways as: network TV, cable TV, satellite TV, TV through the internet (aka “streaming content”), TV on our flatscreens, TV on our laptops, and TV on our smart phones. I’m not even sure it’s appropriate anymore to refer to this all as “TV” because it seems that only a minority of the time are we watching “TV” on an actual television. So by “TV” here I mean it in a more general sense of “television programming.”  
Now, I have found that it is actually quite difficult to get an all-inclusive or “total number” of hours spent watching television programming because of the fragmentation of the television industry. Due to the fact that television content can now be consumed in so many different forms, it is difficult to come across an aggregated total. Be that as it may, the numbers that follow are still amazing. The average person in the US watches more than four hours of “live television” (meaning sitting in front of an actual TV and watching live programming) every single day. After working and sleeping, watching TV is by far the most time consuming activity in our lives (source). Overall, when just looking at Americans, we spend about 250 billion hours every year watching TV (source), or more than 4.8 billion hours per week. In a 65 year lifespan, the average American will spend nine whole years of their existence staring at a TV screen (ibid). And this is just “live TV” mind you. This does not include all the time we spend watching TV as “streaming content.”
Concerning those “streaming content” consumers, currently more than half of all households in the U.S. subscribe to at least one of the big three streaming content providers:  Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. People who have subscriptions to streaming content providers spend about three hours per day watching television programming (source). Whether or not that is in addition to actual “live TV” viewing is hard to surmise. 

The common denominator between both of the examples that I’ve mentioned is that they are mediated by screens. Whether it is sitting in front of a TV screen, or slouching over our smartphone screens, or gazing into our laptop screens, we spend an inordinate amount of time in front of screens. Surely, not all of the time that we spend in front of screens is for the sole purpose of what I have called “idle distraction.” We also spend an insane amount of time in front of screens engrossed in social media—such as Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.--which I will expand on in the next section. Yes, many of us spend a significant amount of time in front of a computer screen for our jobs. But couldn't it be argued that work itself is a form of distraction? (I guess that's another topic for another day). Also, come on. Be honest with yourself. How many of you are never using your computer at work to offer you a distraction from work? “Just a little perusal of Facebook here.” “Oh I’ll just check on my fantasy football team real quick—like 20 minutes.” “I’ll get back to work just as soon as I win a game of spider solitaire.”
So what’s the point, Craig? I’m saying all this to preempt the possible rebuttal to the stats I’m about to share. The temptation to dismiss the figures by saying, “Well it’s obvious that a majority of that time is from doing our jobs for 8+ hours every weekday.” It is true that not 100% of time spent in front of screens is used for the purpose of distraction, but I would argue that the vast majority of it is.
Anyway, in the Unites States alone, people spend an average of 444 minutes, or nearly 7.5 hours, staring at a screen everyday. The breakdown of respective screen categories is as follows: 147 minutes for TV, 103 minutes for computer, 151 minutes for smartphone, and 43 minutes for tablets. Perhaps most surprising is that the United States is not 1st on the list of countries, she doesn’t even get to stand on the podium. The U.S. clocks in at a measly 6th place. The Screen Time Championship belongs to Indonesia, coming in with a grand total of 540 minutes of average daily screen gawping (source).
If an alien lifeform discovered earth and just observed us for a while, I think their summation of our species would sound something like this: “the humanoid race is enslaved by the digital screen race. It is clear that the digital screen race is the dominant species in Earth society, for the humanoids spend almost all of their time mesmerized by their digital masters. It appears that it is impossible for them to achieve anything apart from the digital screens. The screens have succeeded in entrancing the humanoids to such an extent that nearly all of the humanoids’ basic survival behaviors—eating, defecating, exercising, working, sleeping, socializing—are controlled by the screens.”
I imagine that talking about this stuff—especially that last bit about the aliens—makes me sound like a luddite. The type of cantankerous old guy that shakes his fist at modern society with disdain and says things like “back in my day…” and “pass the Metamucil…,” but I promise that this is not the case. I am not a luddite. In fact, in many ways I consider myself a futurist. Advancements in technology excite me. I enjoy talking and reading about how the future will look and feel as it is augmented by technology. As I alluded to earlier, the technology itself is not to blame. It is a cop out to point our fingers in shame and embarrassment at the iPhone and exclaim, “He made me do it!” By passing the blame, we get to pass the responsibility, as well as any uncomfortable feelings that come along with it; and that is a strong temptation. After all, the avoidance of pain and discomfort is a survival instinct bred into our very DNA. However, if we make an effort to resist that inclination to pass the blame onto our devices and take a look at ourselves, we may come to learn something about our individual selves. I’m not promising we will like what we learn, but it may be worthwhile nonetheless.