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How do these online distraction systems work? They start with an external trigger or notification. You may visit a Website or sign up for a service. They will then send you an email, follow you on the Internet with ads, or send you a push notification with very specific language that has been tested to get you to click on it. You click on the link and your attachment or connection to that distraction system gets a little bit stronger. You, unintentionally, provide that system with more information when you read an article, add a friend, or comment on a photo. Without realizing it, and behind the scenes, the machinery of distraction is starting to turn. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being completely attached, you are a 2 at this point. These companies know that you don’t really care about the company itself, but you do care about your friends, family, and co-workers. They leverage these relationships by showing your profile to these contacts. These people are then asked to add you as a contact, friend, or to comment on your photo. Guess what this does? It brings you back to the site and increases the attachment. Think about this just for a second. If a company wants me to come back to their site, then they have a much higher chance of getting me back if they tell me my nephew added me as a friend, or posted a new pic. I care about my nephew. I don’t care about the company. This happens a few times and the attachment goes from a 2 to a 5. Soon, you have more and more connections on the site. Many of these sites have a magic number. Once you cross that threshold they know they really have you. Let’s say it is 10 connections. Once you have 10 connections they know with a level of statistical certainty that they can get you coming back to the site several times a week. Your attachment then goes from a 5 to a 7. All this time they are still pinging you via email, ads or push notifications to get you back to the site. The prompts or triggers to get you back are all external. You may be experiencing uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, sadness, or boredom, but you are not yet feeling these as triggers to go to the site and escape these feelings. Instead, what happens gradually, is that the trigger moves from being external like an email prompt and moves internal. Soon, they do not have to remind you or leverage your relationships to go back to the site. You are now doing it on your own. You are checking it regularly on your own. Your attachment has moved from a 7 to an 8. They’ve got you now, but they don’t completely have you. The tendrils are not yet deep into your brain and that is really where they want to go. They want to get as wrapped around your brain as possible, because the deeper they are - the more unconscious this behavior of checking the site - the more time you spend on the site and the more money they make. When you start living your life, not for what you are actually experiencing at the moment, but instead for how you imagine it will look to other people on these sites, then they really have you. When the experience itself is less meaningful than the image of you on the site and the number of likes it gets, then they are getting really deep. They have moved the center of your self from your actual life and transferred it to the perception of your life on their site. You now mostly live for reactions from other people on these company’s sites. By this time, you are likely refreshing the page, habitually looking at your phone, and wondering why your pic or video has not received more comments or likes. By this time you are fully hooked, as my good friend Nir Eyal would say, and your attachment has gone from an 8 to a full 10. They’ve got you hook, line, and sinker. Scary
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