5 ms·

I also feel like I'm suffering from distractions and lack of focus, but my phone is definitely not the source since I'm still someone who will only check my pho

I also feel like I'm suffering from distractions and lack of focus, but my phone is definitely not the source since I'm still someone who will only check my phone every so often, and am usually I'm too distracted by an article I'm reading on my laptop/desktop to be bothered to look at my phone when it tries to demand my attention. What is distracting for me is this feeling that the stakes are very high right now and that I can't afford to be missing out on available knowledge. This isn't FOMO about what my friends are doing on social media since I'm really only on here and Twitter, where none of my friends are, but a fear that I'm missing some key piece in a puzzle. It's more a sense that there are major systemic crisis we are facing that need solving and my brain is consumed by finding ways to think about these crisis and how to evaluate and implement some kind of solution. I don't know if anyone else is also feeling this anxiety as a source of distraction from normal life or if this is just a personal psychosis. Based on my personal experience I think that systemic complexity is driving up base-level anxiety which is being exploited by media and political entities to profit from anxiety-induced distraction, which only increase the complexity of the systems as every agent becomes further debilitated in their role by anxiety and anxiety-exploiting distractions. PS - When I say "anxiety", I mean a deep feeling of uncertainty about the future.

wutbrodo 7y ago
My view on this is that the specific targets of your anxiety (understanding systemic crises) is just something that your mind ginned up from a more general anxiety. At least, that's how it has worked for me in the past, and I think it's supported by the relevant science (not an expert tho). There have been periods in the past when I had a lot of anxiety about my career or personal life, and keeping my brain busy with random articles fed a perceived need to gather knowledge that really boiled down to not wanting to give my mind a quiet mental backdrop on which the thoughts you're anxious about can bubble up. It was only post hoc that my brain would construct some motivation for why I was reading all those articles, and it sounded similar to what you're describing. This is pretty much the purpose of mindfulness practice: to force this quiet and make you contend with the thoughts actually causing your anxiety. I know this sounds like woo, but it's worth at least trying out mindfulness meditation and getting a keener sense of what concerns you. (And of course, it's entirely possible that you know your own mind and your model is correct. I just thought I'd share similar experiences I've had in the past)

wutbrodo 7y ago

My view on this is that the specific targets of your anxiety (understanding systemic crises) is just something that your mind ginned up from a more general anxiety. At least, that's how it has worked for me in the past, and I think it's supported by the relevant science (not an expert tho). There have been periods in the past when I had a lot of anxiety about my career or personal life, and keeping my brain busy with random articles fed a perceived need to gather knowledge that really boiled down to not wanting to give my mind a quiet mental backdrop on which the thoughts you're anxious about can bubble up. It was only post hoc that my brain would construct some motivation for why I was reading all those articles, and it sounded similar to what you're describing. This is pretty much the purpose of mindfulness practice: to force this quiet and make you contend with the thoughts actually causing your anxiety. I know this sounds like woo, but it's worth at least trying out mindfulness meditation and getting a keener sense of what concerns you. (And of course, it's entirely possible that you know your own mind and your model is correct. I just thought I'd share similar experiences I've had in the past)