impact our work, but they also impact our focus on our relationships, reflection, and a myriad of other tasks that we perform in our daily lives. Nir Eyal, in his book Indistractable, outlines the internal and external triggers that can cause us to lose focus. Internal triggers are the urge to go onto social media or check if someone is texting us (you know, the three bubbles), or Google something just for the sake of googling it. External triggers are the push notifications that come from our smartphones, alerting us to everything from new tweets from the Kardashians to news and information from every app imaginable. We have become so focused on them that they are having an impact on almost every aspect of our daily lives. In fact, a recent study suggests that 10% of people check their smartphones during sex. I will resist the urge to opine on any impact on sexual productivity here, but the point is that we have a challenge when it comes to being focused in our daily lives.
Given that attention is both a vital and a finite resource, we have to take steps to ensure that we are allocating it towards the activities that are most important to us. First, we can actively manage the alerts on our smartphones. Do you really need all of those push notifications? If you cannot part with all of them, then maybe there can be a dedicated time when the smartphone can go into a drawer or even be turned off. At work, having your email open where push notifications alert you to every new email can also be a constant distraction. A dedicated time to focus on email can be a huge boost to productivity. And related, make commitments to complete tasks for a given period of time or even to completion. If you say, “I am going to work on this project for the next hour uninterrupted,” then create the environment to do so and get it done. Regardless of the strategy you employ, you are empowered to actively manage any distractions, whether internal or external, to your personal and professional life.
CHAPTER 3 The News
“The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self‐governing.”
— Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism
It seems as if there are countless sources for news, including broadcast and cable channels, radio, newspapers, and online platforms, much of which can be accessed directly or via social media. Within each medium, we have to decide which source is trustworthy and which is not, separating fact from opinion and seeking and objectivity over bias. Much of the news draws us to the sensational, prioritizing the graphic over the detail, and in some cases the flashy over substance. In addition, we all have an innate desire for vindication of our opinions, leading us to sources that provide commentary that lends itself to confirmation bias. And if that is not enough, the fast pace of today's news cycle makes the stories that have yet to achieve even their 15 minutes of fame already obsolete, as breaking news headlines suddenly replace the previous ones. As I write this chapter, there are fires blazing through the western part of the United States; two hurricanes threatening the Gulf Coast; an endless carnival of accusations, conspiracy theories, and polls related to the 2020 election; heightened worry about nuclear testing in North Korea; and, not to be outdone, a worldwide pandemic. Each of these stories brings a constant stream of breaking news alerts, push notifications, and opinions. The news today seems like a salad tossed with headline fatigue, information overload, confirmation bias, and way too much sensationalism dressing. The news can be overwhelming.
Our main sources of news have evolved over the past many decades. In the 1960s, network news was considered separate and apart from the entertainment division. Profitable networks thought that a well‐funded and respected news division would help both with their reputation as well as mitigate any regulatory pressures from the government. At that time, network news was not designed to make a profit. And yet visibility was high. Walter Cronkite, anchor of the CBS Evening News from the 1960s to the 1980s, was voted “the most trusted man in America.” At the same time, local news and newspapers were thriving, representing their cities and regions and cornering the market on commercial and print advertising revenue.
The news landscape changed radically in the 1980s as cable news grew in stature and media conglomerates began taking ownership of the broadcast networks. With this new ownership came a bigger focus on profit within the news divisions. By the 1990s, advertising became more targeted and the audiences for network news were beginning to erode with the increased competition from cable news. In the 2000s, the internet began its assault on newspaper circulation, while social media platforms launched to create an even more competitive environment. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, 49% of Americans get their news from television, with social media now outpacing newspapers as a primary news source. Dr. Michael Griffin, professor of media studies at Macalester College and author of Media and Community says, “In the evolution of media platforms we have moved from choosing a program lineup on a particular broadcast network (ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS) to ‘surfing’ cable TV, with many more channels competing to grab and hold our attention with increasingly overdramatized, politicized, and specifically targeted content, to the web, with an algorithmic, hyperlinked system designed to harvest clicks. The business activity we refer to as ‘attention merchants’ evolved from radio, television, and popular publications (e.g. ‘the magazine stand’) to the Web, which encourages an almost constant, addictive monitoring.” Media platforms are now full participants in the attention economy, using sensationalism and opinion to attract and retain as many eyeballs as possible to deliver to advertisers.
Drawing Your Attention – and Keeping It
Clickbait is designed to draw a reader's attention to an article or video by using some form of sensationalized or perhaps even blatantly deceptive language. We have all seen them: “You won't believe how much money Kim Kardashian has under her mattress!” or “10 things about clickbait headlines that you always hate!” As Dr. Shyam Sundar, the James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects and co‐director of the Media Effects Laboratory at the Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, says, “News outlets resort to hyping‐up their stories by making them more sensational than they really are. Initially, clickbaits were used only by shady websites to get users to click through several pages in order to get more ad impressions. But now you see even respectable news outlets resorting to clickbaits in a desperate effort to not only attract readers but also to show good metrics of user engagement, which are important for earning advertising dollars.”
Obviously, the downside of this approach is that it can disappoint readers who click and see that the content of the article does not match the headline. Furthermore, the inaccurate or sensationalized clickbait headline could impact the perception of the reader when it comes to the actual topic. A group of Australian researchers explored the effects of headlines that contained some element of misinformation. They found that misleading headlines or images can constrain elements of information processing and, perhaps more importantly, create a bias towards a specific interpretation of a news event. So if a headline reads, “There are a lot of questions about the honesty of President Abraham Lincoln,” you might be inclined to click on it and discover that the content of the article is irrelevant to his honesty as a president (maybe the article described something silly like how several people have said that he once inflated his net worth to his wife, Mary Todd, when they were dating). You could read that article and understand the contents but still walk away from it thinking there are questions surrounding the honesty of Abraham Lincoln (hmm … and did he really deliver that Gettysburg Address?). Headlines designed to attract clicks through sensational language can bias the actual perceptions of the story even if the facts of the story do not match the sensationalism. It is one thing when the topic is frivolous, but it is another when the headline relates to real news that has real consequences.
The quality and reliability of information within the digital landscape today is filled with entities that have a number of political and commercial agendas that can create misinformation and take advantage of our biases. Griffin suggests that information becomes a currency of this digital environment,
