The Art Of Zoning Out

Sam Anderson book reviewer for New York magazine and writer of many articles like, In Defense of Distraction, Anderson has primarily become interested in the way culture and our habits of reading has drastically changed with technology. In the article In Defense of Distraction, Anderson explores the poor attention one has developed throughout the decades and how this attention has distracted the human mind in a way that it has centered to our cultural attention. It is an inevitable habit we seem to apply in our everyday life’s, in our yoga class one a week, the cancer slowly spreading across our body, the pretty little liars show that is shown every Tuesday that seems to not be enough. We seem to pay attention all the time

Fraser tells his reader that he was often described as “disruptive” and “unfocused” in his grade school years. As Giles continues, he describes his mischievous behavior as a passing phase where there were other things he desired more than going to class and because his desires were not satisfied he rebelled. “This may be a less noble account, but hardly pathological, or in need of some medical classification” (Fraser 261). Many young children experience this same phenomenon; today a term scientists deem as ADHD. “Since the early 80’s, society has decided that adolescent trouble-making is some sort of medical condition” (Fraser 261).

When I was in the eighth grade, I had two very contrasting instructors. One instructor was remarkably entertaining, but the other instructor was truly ordinary and tedious. The teacher who was engaging taught mathematics, and the stale teacher taught me literature. The both of them taught my two favorite subjects at the time; however, as the school year went on, my interest in literature declined and my interest in mathematics rose to a special high. The literature teacher taught like every traditional teacher. This instructor’s class had the same routine everyday. The class consisted of taking turns reading out loud and at the end of class, the teacher would stand by the door and hand out the homework for that night, which was over what we read in class. No one looked forward to going to that particular class because it was the same lifeless routine everyday; however, my mathematic teacher was an unpredictable person. He transformed work problems into little games. His teaching tactic goes as follows: he would spend the first half of our hour long class lecturing, then he spent the last half of class constructing work problems on the board with random, absurd work problems. If you got a question right, he gave you the option of either shooting a ball of notebook paper into a basket or throw to the same ball of paper at a bullseye target that was poorly drawn on the board. The trick was either you can receive a piece of candy

In the article “Addicted to Distraction” by Tony Schwartz, he argues that the internet has a relentless pull on humans. He goes into detail on how the internet interrupts all daily activity. Schwartz also explains how he is also a victim to the internet and how he is overcoming the overuse of it. The internet does have a grasp on the attention of humans. People willingly give up their primary focus and activities just to check their devices. People are imprisoned to the internet and don’t even realize that it is leading to a deterioration of their learning ability.

The authors then present a detailed case report of an eight-year old boy, named Jon, who exhibited violent behavior at school. Jon’s fantasy play was described in detail. Most of it involved viewing himself as a superhero, with four snakes that helped him fight "bad guys". Jon drew a picture of these snakes that resembled human fingers. When this was pointed out by the therapist, Jon was eventually able to talk about (and therefore process and resolve) the time he witnessed his father choke his mother. This therapeutic process for Jon lasted over 14 months and eventually his violent behavior vanished.

Tony Schwartz wrote an article called “ Addicted to Distraction” on November 28, 2016 to inform the readers about how the internet is a distraction and how distractions can affect your life. One of the main points in this article is that people use the internet for non important things. Another point is stated in paragraph 14, “ The problem is that we humans have a very limited reservoir of will and discipline.” Through out the article, Shwartz did not only write the article to only talk about his own addiction, he also wrote it to where the readers can relate to it and to compare it to their very own distraction.

In the essay “Multitasking can make you lose … Um … Focus” Alina Tugend exams why multitasking can make you lose focus. Tugend explains what multitasking is in the first section she also explains why it is bad. She then brings in a professor to explain how multitasking works in a scientific way. Alina Tugend then uses case studies to show how multitasking can cause loss of focus and impairment in motor activities. She then shows how multitasking can actually delay your progress on completing projects by constantly switching to different tasks. Tugend then sums it all up by trying to teach us how to better ourselves and to not multitask.

Although his affect eventually improved, he suffered from speech delays and possible mental developmental delays. To clarify these delays, in a study authored by Schultz et al. (2013) suggested that, “[T]he stress of acknowledging and coping with violence exposure may potentially alter the timing of developmental trajectories” (p. 698). Cozolino (2014) explained that when a child experiences too much stress over a prolonged period of time, the event hampers their ability to adapt, explore, and learn while limiting neuroplasticity. Counter to these possible developmental delays, Alejandro understands instructions in both English and

People who undergo an upsetting situation due to their health, tend to find other things such as hobbies to take their mind off of what they can’t control. This need for distraction is present in Rosalind Warren in “Furniture Fight”, In which Linda has terminal cancer and focuses on furniture and is able to change and redesign the way she wants, because that takes her mind off of how weak she is and how she can’t do anything about it. To that effect, the story suggests that when people are suffering from deeper problems they often distract themselves with smaller issues they can control. This sad reality is shown by the father who deals with the death of his first and soon to be second dead wife by showing interests in their hobbies as well as Linda’s irrational obsession with furniture.

Daydreams are a defense mechanism of the psyche to escape a high stress reality. In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses daydreams as a manifestation of emotional baggage in First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, whom has become obsessed with Martha, a girl with whom he corresponds. “On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into

Jennie Hobson is a 7-year-old European American female who attended a school for children with severe developmental disabilities. She was inexpressive within your classroom environment; furthermore, eye contact was a trait she seldom expressed. Customarily, when left alone Jennie demonstrated behavior of sticking out tongue, make strange sounds, and she would wrap her hand around her throat. Jennie has the ability to use crayon and manipulate paper which demonstrated outstanding usage fine motor skills. Jennie physical aggression exemplified her handiness; consequently, within a few seconds she could grab jewelry or eye glasses and throw them to the other side of the room (Kearney, 2012).

On lazy days when I'm bored, I daydream a lot. Just staring into space or look at the sky and the clouds or whatever that catches my intrest. I imagine various things, from the future, to the past. Sometimes I think of of the possibility of having a brother or sister since I am the only child in my house. I think of other people and their relationships with their siblings

Mr. Udall shows his compulsive traits by feeling the need to lock his apartment door three times, turns the lights on and off five times and cannot step on cracks or lines in the flooring or street. These repetitive behaviors are normally not intrusive to others, but Mr. Udall does involve others in his compulsion when he is trying not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. We do not know the exact rationale behind his compulsions, but many people fear that something bad will happen if they do not engage in their compulsion.

Mind wandering is one of the most used mental activities a person uses throughout the day. You may be planning to make dinner for the evening, driving to the mall, or even when you want to go sleep. As we think about these things, our mind can wander to different ideas, or thought and we could arise at a new problem or situation. We have these creative thoughts when we are engaged in something else. Some research suggests that mind wandering can enhance creativity, but also has been shown to decrease reading comprehension and memory tests of working memory.

“Alright guys, let go over the answers to these questions and quiet down.” The loud and familiar voices bring me back to the high school classroom. I look around and everything seems to be the same to me. I know the boy who sit in front of me, his name is Andre. I can recognize a lot of my classmates faces, but I don’t know many of their names and I haven’t talk to them before. My math teacher is about to go over some algebra questions, but a lot of my classmates are still chattering. I sat near the window and had nothing to do after finished my assignment early. I know that it is again a boring day for me just like any of other day. Daydreaming became what I do sometimes when I was very