Staying Focused in a World of Toxic Distractions
3 Ways Mission- and Purpose-Driven People Can Break Free
For those of us who have a deep desire to do a little good in the world, the challenges are many. Too little time. Too many problems. Too much complexity.
And then there is the pull of toxic distractions—the dark circus-like atmosphere of calls to look over here, look at me, don’t look at that.
These distractions, as some have noted in other contexts, may appear unserious, ridiculous even, on the surface. But they are deeply serious in their consequences.
They threaten to pull us away from our intentions to do good work. They threaten to further undermine our capacity for focused attention, a necessity for achieving anything truly meaningful. And they threaten to keep us in reactive mode, surrendering our own attention and agency to others.
In short, repeated exposure to toxic distractions keeps us off balance, and as any circus professional knows, being off balance during a hire-wire act rarely ends well.
This matters greatly now because we live in an age of hire-wire acts aplenty. Given the significance and complexity of issues many of us care about—from equality to democracy to sustainability—we all need both feet solidly on the ground.
So why do we get pulled into all manner of distractions, especially toxic ones—by which I mean those with intentions that are decidedly unhelpful for the greater social good? More importantly, what can we do about it?
As usual, neuroscience, psychology, and good old common sense have a few things to say about this.
3 Reasons We Get Hooked
A 2023 study published in the journal Nature drew a clear conclusion summarized in its headline: “Negativity draws online news consumption.”
The journal examined behavior related to approximately 105,000 variations of news stories on Upworthy. Although positive words were slightly more prevalent, negative words in headlines increased consumption rates. Specifically, for each additional negative word appearing in a headline, the click-through rate increased by 2.3%.
In other words, even people who go to a platform for its positive news are more likely to respond when the headline contains something negative.
What’s going on here? There are many reasons. Consider just three:
Our negativity bias. Sure, part of this is for good evolutionary reasons. Our ancestors, who could detect a lion in the bush or a wooly mammoth over their shoulder, were more likely to survive. The brain’s wiring to be alert to threats did them a favor.
These days, thanks to neuroscience, we can see something similar at play. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that negative news activates the amygdala—the part of the brain associated with fear and other emotions. Though this is of more dubious benefit in today’s world, it makes negative news harder to ignore.Our desire for a sense of control: Research suggests that when faced with uncertain or threatening situations—and there are just a few—we tend to seek out information for a sense of control. Several studies have demonstrated how common this behavior was during the COVID-19 pandemic. But we likely don’t need to rely on research to recognize that one.
Social media algorithms: Finally, an all-too-well-known and still powerful contributor to our focus on negative news stems from the role of social media platforms in designing algorithms that prioritize emotionally charged negative content. The unfortunate result is that we get as hooked as the person sitting at a slot machine, eyes glazed over.
3 Ways to Avoid the Pull to Toxicity
There is no shortage of practical advice for safeguarding ourselves from the toxic seas we swim in today: Curate your news sources, limit the time you spend consuming news, and experiment with days for a digital detox.
But for people who care about the state of our world today, about making a difference, and about inspiring others to do the same, here are a few other practices I have found helpful.
Use your values as a filter. If you care about having a positive social impact in the world, odds are you lean toward honesty, fairness, and decency and against, well, its opposites. Try consciously bringing those values to serve as a filter when consuming the news. Are you reading something that is a blatant violation of your values? See it for what it is and reject it as the Buddha did Mara. No clicks for you!
Bring your emotional self-awareness to the table. If you feel yourself getting riled up by some new headline—you know that familiar sense of anger rising or of sadness pulling you down—take it as a reminder that it is time to step away, figuratively and perhaps literally. You have stepped over the line—that is, you’re hooked—and are likely to become less and less able to moderate your decision-making after that point. So, take a pause. Take a breath. Take a walk—whatever you have to do to refresh yourself.
Know that your desire to be informed is not supported by actions designed to keep you off-balance. People who want to make a difference in the world are often also people who want to be informed about the state of the world. As a result, we can be vulnerable to over-news consumption. I know I certainly am.
But taking even the slightest break from the onslaught of negative and especially toxic news helps us see that being informed today means consciously creating enough space between us and the news to enable reflection. Reflection on what does and does not make sense. On what is and is not useful. And, above all, on what supports or fails to support the kind of people we want to be and the kind of world we wish to create.
In short, many good people—mission-driven, purpose-driven, and values-driven leaders and citizens—are doing good and even great things today. And the world needs every one of you. So, let’s not lose the battle for our attention and action but keep our eyes on the prize of being a positive influence wherever, whenever, and however we can.