"Distraction" is a Plural Noun
What does your explore page say about you?
Hi folks, today I want to share and elaborate on the ideas of a jazz writer on Substack named
, AKA The Honest Broker. I’ve been thinking about one of his essays for months on a near-daily basis. In the essay, entitled The State of the Culture, 2024, he turned “distraction” into a plural noun and made this brilliant graphic that haunts me.
This shift in language is reshaping how I consume and make “content” because it isn’t content; it’s “distraction.”
Likewise, when I go to use the term “social media,” I replace it in my head with “distraction.”
What are you watching? Distraction.
What are you scrolling? Distraction.
What are you making and sharing? Distraction.
Gioia writes:
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.
Distraction exists to be seen and to circulate; it exists because view counts have become currency.
Understanding Your Distraction
If you go to your explore page on IG, your “for you” page on TikTok, or your feeds on Facebook or X, you’ll find plenty of Distraction with a capital D. For the most part, nothing on these feeds is life-changing. It’s just amusing, addictive, and time-sucking. Nothing is art you will really study and absorb. Nothing is deep. It’s not a movie, a book, or even a profound haiku. It’s mostly distraction.
You are consuming distraction the way distraction has consumed society.
Replace “content” with “distraction” and let yourself lean into this phraseology. The results are profound. It’s like being in the grocery store aisle and realizing that what’s around you isn’t nourishment, but plastic, chemicals, and profit, like changing the term “junk food” to “obesity treats,” or renaming alcohol “addiction potion,” or “low-dose poison.” Cigarettes to “cancer sticks.” You get the point.
Then you must ask yourself, why am I spending this time watching distraction? Why did I look at distraction for an hour?
What am I really seeking distraction FROM right now?
And look, we all do it. I’m not trying to shame you. I’m one of the worst offenders, chronically online, but this language shift is making me more conscious and aware, more mindful, and that’s a good thing.
These days I often try to limit my distraction consumption, and when I find myself reaching for distraction, I open up DuoLingo and study Spanish, or I do Wordle or the NYT crossword puzzle instead.
I ponder the question above—what am I trying to distract myself from experiencing? Because every moment is a choice and our moments aren’t infinite. They will soon be gone. They also add up, and what does that much daily distraction add up to?
The Human Drives Behind Distraction Categories
With my mad scientist mind running, I wish I could click on other IG users and see their individual explore pages. Then I’d speculate on what they crave instead of their real lives. Is it women’s butts in yoga pants (Sex)? Cat videos (Humor)? Violent news or propaganda (Power)? Couples holding hands in magical places in Thailand (love)(adventure)? Fancy boats (money)(status)? Your friend’s highly constructed family and baby pics (love) (reproduction)(belonging)?
I believe whatever distraction is on your explore page, that’s what you need to distract yourself less from in your real life. Turn off the distraction and go out and find whatever the distraction is substituting for in your real life.
Yet, if we could lurk other people’s explore pages, folks would probably start curating their viewing habits, because a lot of men probably wouldn’t want other people to see just how much sexual content they’re looking at on Instagram and elsewhere.1
I mean, we all know the real reason Elon Musk recently made “likes” private on X. People want to hide what they’re looking at. People don’t want to be criticized or judged for their desires. We want the freedom to distract ourselves in peace. We are all addicted to social approval and fearful of social shame.
Plus, there’s a second element on the explore page that’s even more insidious than the distraction you’re craving; it’s what THEY want you to crave, the fresh desire the corporate overlords are striving to instill in you, the distraction THEY’RE pushing for profit and gain. Why would we want to see that? But we keep looking… We can’t seem to stop.
Let Me Show You What I Mean
Here is a screenshot of my explore page at this moment broken down into the category of cravings I think correspond to each distraction.
Sex/erotic male domination.
Spiritual transcendence/connection with nature/God/Higher power— because I view plants and nature as a spiritual realm to connect with, nature as a stand-in for religion or God.
Sex/Belonging— Because this is a weight loss post and I ultimately want to lose weight to have more belonging and more sex.
Humor/Happiness
Sex/Belonging/fear of death— in the same vein as number three, maybe also fear of death/old age, because this may fall into the category of fitness posts, and I see fitness as a way to stave off physical decay and aging.
Spiritual transcendence/God (like #2)
Romantic love
Sex/Belonging (makeup is to create beauty, which is in pursuit of sex and love and belonging.)
Humor— It’s hard to tell, but these are ridiculous pants.
This is what they want me to crave, the corporate influence. This doesn’t correspond to my actual desires. This is Instagram pushing Kylie Jenner's content for its own profit.
Sex — an attractive male
Money/Status — This post is business advice
No idea who this is, so I’m going to assume it’s just an account Instagram is pushing for their own profit.
I look at this and think, why am I spending my time looking at any of this? It’s all tiny fantasy pixels. Humans are so strange.
This shift in language has even deeper implications for creators and I find myself sharing far fewer Instagram posts and reels, no Facebook posts, and very few tweets. Though I am guilty of resharing distraction, and I’m really not sure why I do it.
Now You
What distraction do you watch the most and how much time do you spend watching distraction?
What does your explore page say about you? How do your distraction categories breakdown? Feel free to share a screenshot if you’re feeling feisty.
What other nouns need replacing with more accurate descriptors?
(Women and other genders look at sexual content too, but men look at sexual content the most, so I feel secure saying “men” in this context.)
Before I uninstalled TikTok, my wife once peeked over my shoulder and watched a few videos with me, getting just the kind of window into my psychology that you describe in this article.
She just asked “You realize that every one of these videos’ main message is that you’re not good enough in some way?”
And she was right! They were all self-help adjacent, though mostly spiritual or biohacker-y. Every video would propose a reason I was inadequate and then offer a solution.
You could say I was distracting myself from my desire to be good enough. Good enough for what? To earn what? Really, I was distracting myself from the fact I didn’t believe myself worthy of love—or love myself.
I didn’t frame it in exactly those terms back then. Looking at my example you can see how it’s a useful conceptual framework, though. All that confrontation with my self-loathing shadow was holding me back from getting the love that would actually solve my problem.
So yeah. Glad I uninstalled TikTok. Lots more energy to connect with myself.
Our existence is ending one minute at a time. Most of us have at least some ambition to do some outlandish thing, yet we do nothing to make it happen. Often the reason is fear or anxiety. Our lives are often derailed by only mild discomfort. And to comfort us from the discomfort we have mindless crap online.
Everyone does it. It is a constant battle. My best antidote is to produce something, anything. Articles, music, dig the garden.