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Understanding the Psychology of Distraction

Presenter:

Nir Eyal

Time:

3:13

Summary

It's easy to stumble down a rabbit hole when we consider the action beneficial like checking emails, stock prices, or sports scores.However, if these seemingly beneficial actions take the place of something else we intended to do, they're just distractions.

Transcript

So when we try and understand distraction, we have to understand what distraction is. Not. The opposite of distraction is not focus, the opposite of distraction. Is traction. Both words come from the same Latin root tahare, which means to pull, and both end in the same six letter word, A C T I O N. It spells action.


So traction is any action that pulls you towards what you want, things that you are doing with intent. Now, the opposite of traction is. Dis traction. Anything you do that pulls you away from what you plan to do with intent. So this is incredibly important to understand this distinction because of two reasons.

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