A New Theory of Distraction (2015)

I don't think that solving distraction solves attention in an epistemological way because when you have attention you have then the problem of choice. You can't say, generally, if your attention is right or wrong.

Using your meditation example, if you are a zen buddhist attention has a different meaning that focusing on learning math.

It should be noted that The Mind Illuminated defines "attention" and "awareness" in specific ways. This is from the TMI subreddit:

> Attention is what is at the focus of your experience, while awareness Is a broader 'knowing' of your field of consciousness. For instance, while reading this, your attention is on the words on your screen, while you are also still aware peripherally of forms around you, sounds, smells, feelings, etc. Awareness is the ability to be conscious of all thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc that make up your experience. Attention is the ability to focus on one thing, and hold that one thing exclusively as the object of your focus. In other words, awareness might be compared to flood lights while attention might be more like a spotlight.

This is very much in line with Marion Milner's book A Life of One's Own and Les Fehmi's work on "open attention" that have been discussed on HN recently.

It is typical of addictions that they are ineffective at solving the problems that make us seek them — so IMO it wouldn't be surprising if an urge for autonomy leads to scrolling which doesn't actually satisfy that urge. Note that the article a couple of paragraphs later mentions gamblers and occasional “winning” that is in the long term losing.

But I think a solution, or at least an experiment to test the hypothesis, is suggested by your reaction ("When scrolling I feel powerless, no autonomy") which is itself a desire for more autonomy: what happens if we instead cultivate the opposite value, less autonomy/freedom and more service/subordination/allegiance (to the job or sleep routine or whatever)?

If the theory of the article is right, then a desire for autonomy leads to distraction which, being unsatisfying, only intensifies that desire. So cultivating the opposite (telling oneself "What I need right now is actually not autonomy, but fidelity to higher goals" or whatever) may curb the hunger for autonomy more effectively than our ineffective distraction does?

> Many of the teenage students I encountered seemed to be in a state of what I would call depressive hedonia. Depression is usually characterized as a state of anhedonia, but the condition I'm referring to is constituted not by an inability to get pleasure so much as it by an inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure. There is a sense that 'something is missing' - but no appreciation that this mysterious, missing enjoyment can only be accessed beyond the pleasure principle. In large part this is a consequence of students' ambiguous structural position, stranded between their old role as subjects of disciplinary institutions and their new status as consumers of services.

Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism

Perhaps the choice is to refrain from making a more painful choice, even if the pain is fleeting; do you often find yourself too exhausted to prepare for bed, so instead it is more comforting to numb yourself by scrolling in the endless present?

Eerily I recently spoke to someone who described an opioid addiction in almost the exact same way. He wanted to stop every single minute of every day, but spent every one of those minutes working towards more drugs. It was hard to listen to and imagine the experience of needing the thing you’ve come to hate more than anything. Eventually the “good feeling” it gave him felt faint and yet became psychologically unbearable at the same time.

I don’t know what most people’s experiences are like, but this came to mind as I read your comment. Clearly not the same things, just similar enough to jog my memory. Autonomy, desire, and control are often extremely dysfunctional or even antagonistic of each other in humans.