Indistractable

by Nir Eyal;

  Page 131 “As you watch a video, YouTube’s algorithm hums away at predicting . . .” Nir Eyal, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (New York: Portfolio, 2014).

  Page 132 “Specifically, I like the free browser extension called DF Tube . . .” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distraction-free/mjdepdfccjgcndkmemponafgioodelna?hl=en.

  CHAPTER 22: THE POWER OF PRECOMMITMENTS

  Page 137 “He uses a heavy, obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace . . .” Lev Grossman, “Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist,” Time, August 12, 2010, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010185-1,00.html.

  Page 137 “Famed director Quentin Tarantino never uses a computer to write his screenplays . . .” Iain Blair, “Tarantino Says Horror Movies Are Fun,” Reuters, April 5, 2007, www.reuters.com/article/us-tarantino/tarantino-says-horror-movies-are-fun-idUSN2638212720070405.

  Page 137 “Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri writes her books . . .” Harper’s Bazaar UK, “Booker Prize Nominated Jhumpa Lahiri on India, Being a Mother and Being Inspired by the Ocean,” Harper’s Bazaar, October 4, 2013, www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/staying-in/news/a20300/booker-prize-nominated-jhumpa-lahiri-on-india-being-a-mother-and-being-inspired-by-the-ocean.

  Page 138 “To do so, we must learn a powerful technique called a ‘precommitment’. . .” Zeb Kurth-Nelson and A. David Redish, “Don’t Let Me Do That!—Models of Precommitment,” Frontiers in Neuroscience 6, no. 138 (2012), https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00138.

  Page 139 “In Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses resists the Sirens’ song . . .” Adolf Furtwängler, Odysseus and the Sirens, n.d., drawing based on detail from an Attic red-figured stamnos from ca. 480–470 bc, height 35.3 cm (13 ¾²), British Museum, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Furtwaengler1924009.jpg.

  Page 139 “A ‘Ulysses pact’ is defined as ‘a freely made decision that is designed . . .’” Wikipedia, s.v. “Ulysses pact,” accessed February 11, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulysses_pact&oldid=764886941.

  CHAPTER 23: PREVENT DISTRACTION WITH EFFORT PACTS

  Page 141 “Krippendorf and Tseng’s concept was so compelling that it scored a deal . . .” www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Safe-Locking-Container-Height/dp/B00JGFQTD2.

  Page 142 “Whenever I write on my laptop, for instance, I click on the SelfControl app . . .” https://selfcontrolapp.com/.

  Page 142 “Another app called Freedom is a bit more sophisticated . . .” https://freedom.to/.

  Page 142 “Forest, perhaps my favorite distraction-proofing app, is one I find myself using . . .” www.forestapp.cc/.

  Page 142 “Apple’s iOS 12 allows users to schedule time constraints for certain apps . . .” “IOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time,” Apple Newsroom, June 4, 2018, www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/ios-12-introduces-new-features-to-reduce-interruptions-and-manage-screen-time/.

  CHAPTER 24: PREVENT DISTRACTION WITH PRICE PACTS

  Page 147 “A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine illustrated the power . . .” Scott D. Halpern et al., “Randomized Trial of Four Financial-Incentive Programs for Smoking Cessation,” New England Journal of Medicine 372, no. 22 (2015): 2108–17, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1414293.

  CHAPTER 25: PREVENT DISTRACTION WITH IDENTITY PACTS

  Page 155 “Consider an experiment run by a group of Stanford University psychologists in 2011.” Christopher J. Bryan et al., “Motivating Voter Turnout by Invoking the Self,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 31 (2011): 12653–56, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1103343108.

  Page 155 “The second group answered similar questions . . .” Adam Gorlick, “Stanford Researchers Find That a Simple Change in Phrasing Can Increase Voter Turnout,” Stanford News, July 19, 2011, http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/july/increasing-voter-turnout-071911.html.

  Page 156 “The results were ‘among the largest experimental effects ever observed on objectively measured . . .’” Bryan et al., “Motivating Voter Turnout.”

  Page 156 “A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research tested the words . . .” Vanessa M. Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt, “‘I Don’t’ Versus ‘I Can’t’: When Empowered Refusal Motivates Goal-Directed Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Research 39, no. 2 (2012): 371–81, https://doi.org/10.1086/663212.

  Page 158 “Their results consistently show that teaching others provides more motivation . . .” Leah Fessler, “Psychologists Have Surprising Advice for People Who Feel Unmotivated,” Quartz at Work, August 22, 2018, https://qz.com/work/1363911/two-psychologists-have-a-surprising-theory-on-how-to-get-motivated/.

  Page 158 “Studies show teaching others can be even more effective . . .” “Targeting Hypocrisy Promotes Safer Sex,” Stanford SPARQ, accessed September 28, 2018, https://sparq.stanford.edu/solutions/targeting-hypocrisy-promotes-safer-sex.

  Page 158 “As Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach note in the MIT Sloan Management Review, when people confess . . .” Lauren Eskreis-Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach, “Need Motivation at Work? Try Giving Advice,” MIT Sloan Management Review (blog), August 13, 2018, https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/need-motivation-at-work-try-giving-advice/.

  Page 158 “A study conducted by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino and her colleagues explored how rituals . . .” Allen Ding Tian et al., “Enacting Rituals to Improve Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114, no. 6 (2018): 851–76, https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000113.

  Page 159 “Though conventional wisdom says our beliefs shape our behaviors . . .” Daryl J. Bem, “Self-Perception Theory,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Leonard Berkowitz, vol. 6 (New York: Academic Press, 1972).

  Page 159 “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook . . .” The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1918) 370.

  CHAPTER 26: DISTRACTION IS A SIGN OF DYSFUNCTION

  Page 166 “In fact, a 2006 meta-analysis by Stephen Stansfeld and Bridget Candy at University College London found . . .” Stephen Stansfeld and Bridget Candy, “Psychosocial Work Environment and Mental Health—a Meta-analytic Review,” Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health 32, no. 6 (2006): 443–62.

  Page 166 “It doesn’t so much matter what you do, but rather the work environment you do it in.” Stephen Stansfeld in telephone interview with the author, February 13, 2018.

  Page 167 “Depression costs the US economy over $51 billion annually in absenteeism . . .” “Depression in The Workplace,” Mental Health America, November 1, 2013, www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/depression-workplace.

  Page 167 “Leslie Perlow, a consultant turned professor at Harvard Business School, led an extensive four-year study . . .” Leslie A. Perlow, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).

  Page 167 “The more junior partner was continually asking us to expand and add things . . .” Perlow, Sleeping with Your Smartphone, brackets in the original.

  CHAPTER 27: FIXING DISTRACTION IS A TEST OF COMPANY CULTURE

  Page 171 “This would give people time away from phone calls and email notifications . . .” Leslie A. Perlow, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).

  Page 174 “The search giant announced the results of a two-year study . . .” Julia Rozovsky, “The Five Keys to a Successful Google Team,” Re:Work (blog), November 17, 2015, https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/.

  Page 174 “In her TEDx talk, Edmondson defines psychological safety . . .” Amy Edmondson, “Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace,” TEDx talk at TEDxHGSE, May 4, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=231&v=LhoLuui9gX8.

  Page 175 “Finally, leaders must ‘model curiosity and ask lots of questions.’” Edmondso
n, “Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace.”

  CHAPTER 28: THE INDISTRACTABLE WORKPLACE

  Page 177 “Over ten million people log on to Slack every day.” Slack Team, “With 10+ Million Daily Active Users, Slack Is Where More Work Happens Every Day, All over the World,” Slack (blog), accessed March 22, 2019, https://slackhq.com/slack-has-10-million-daily-active-users.

  Page 177 “According to a 2015 article in Inc. magazine that named Slack its Company of the Year . . .” Jeff Bercovici, “Slack Is Our Company of the Year. Here’s Why Everybody’s Talking About It,” Inc., November 23, 2015, www.inc.com/magazine/201512/jeff-bercovici/slack-company-of-the-year-2015.html.

  Page 178 “You need to have uninterrupted work time . . .” Casey Renner, “Former Slack CMO, Bill Macaitis, on How Slack Uses Slack,” OpenView Labs, May 19, 2017, https://labs.openviewpartners.com/how-slack-uses-slack/.

  Page 180 “Jim Collins’s best sellers Good to Great and Built to Last included profiles . . .” Graeme Codrington, “Good to Great . . . to Gone!,” Tomorrow Today, December 9, 2011, www.tomorrowtodayglobal.com/2011/12/09/good-to-great-to-gone-2/.

  Page 181 “. . . on Glassdoor.com, BCG has been named among the ten ‘Best Places to Work’ for eight of the past nine years . . .” Boston Consulting Group Overview on Glassdoor, accessed February 12, 2018, www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Boston-Consulting-Group-EI_IE3879.11,34.htm.

  Page 181 “. . . Slack has an average anonymous review of 4.8 out of 5 stars . . .” Slack Reviews on Glassdoor, accessed February 12, 2018, www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/slack-reviews-SRCH_KE0,5.htm.

  CHAPTER 29: AVOID CONVENIENT EXCUSES

  Page 185 “Articles with headlines like . . .” Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” Atlantic, September 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.

  Page 185 “Articles with headlines like . . .” Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “The Risk of Teen Depression and Suicide Is Linked to Smartphone Use, Study Says,” NPR Mental Health, December 17, 2017, www.npr.org/2017/12/17/571443683/the-call-in-teens-and-depression.

  Page 185 “It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink . . .” Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”

  Page 185 “A search on YouTube reveals thousands of videos of parents storming into their kids’ rooms . . .” YouTube search, “dad destroys kids phone,” accessed July 23, 2018, www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dad+destroys+kids+phone.

  Page 186 “An exhaustive meta-analysis of sixteen studies ‘found that . . .’” Mark L. Wolraich, David B. Wilson, and J. Wade White, “The Effect of Sugar on Behavior or Cognition in Children: A Meta-analysis,” JAMA 274, no. 20 (November 22, 1995): 1617–21, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03530200053037.

  Page 187 “Studies have found that teenagers in many societies . . .” Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry III, Adolescence: An Anthropological Inquiry (New York: Free Press, 1991).

  Page 187 “Many historians note that through most of recorded human history . . .” Robert Epstein, “The Myth of the Teen Brain,” Scientific American, June 1, 2007, www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-teen-brain-2007-06/.

  Page 187 “An 1883 medical journal attributed rising rates of suicide and homicide . . .” Richard McSherry, “Suicide and Homicide Under Insidious Forms,” Sanitarian, April 26, 1883.

  Page 187 “In 1936, kids were said to ‘have developed the habit of dividing attention . . .’” W. W. J., review of Children and Radio Programs: A Study of More than Three Thousand Children in the New York Metropolitan Area, by Azriel L. Eisenberg, Gramophone, September 1936, https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/32669/page/31?term=crime.

  Page 187 “Each successive historical age has ardently believed that an unprecedented ‘crisis’ in youth behavior . . .” Abigail Wills, “Youth Culture and Crime: What Can We Learn from History?” History Extra, August 12, 2009, www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/youth-culture-and-crime-what-can-we-learn-from-history/.

  Page 188 “In a rebuttal to the article that claimed children are on the brink . . .” “No, Smartphones Are Not Destroying a Generation,” Psychology Today, August 6, 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/once-more-feeling/201708/no-smartphones-are-not-destroying-generation.

  Page 188 “Although an ‘everything in moderation’ message when discussing screen time . . .’” “More Screen Time for Kids Isn’t All That Bad: Researcher Says Children Should Be Allowed to Delve into Screen Technology, as It Is Becoming an Essential Part of Modern Life,” ScienceDaily, February 7, 2017, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170207105326.htm.

  Page 188 “A study conducted by Andrew Przybylski at the Oxford Internet Institute found . . .” Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein, “A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis: Quantifying the Relations Between Digital-Screen Use and the Mental Well-Being of Adolescents,” Psychological Science 28, no. 2 (January 13, 2017): 204–15, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797616678438.

  Page 188 “Even at exceptional levels, we’re talking about a very small impact.” Tom Chivers, “It Turns Out Staring at Screens Isn’t Bad for Teens’ Mental Wellbeing,” Buzzfeed, January 14, 2017, www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/mario-kart-should-be-available-on-the-nhs.

  CHAPTER 30: UNDERSTAND THEIR INTERNAL TRIGGERS

  Page 191 “Their ‘self-determination theory’ is widely regarded as the backbone of psychological well-being . . .” Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” American Psychologist 55, no. 1 (January 2000): 68–78, https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68.

  Page 192 “Maricela Correa-Chávez and Barbara Rogoff, professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz, conducted an experiment . . .” Maricela Correa-Chávez and Barbara Rogoff, “Children’s Attention to Interactions Directed to Others: Guatemalan Mayan and European American Patterns,” Developmental Psychology 45, no. 3 (May 2009): 630–41, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014144.

  Page 192 “Mayan parents ‘feel very strongly that every child knows best . . .’” Michaeleen Doucleff, “A Lost Secret: How to Get Kids to Pay Attention,” NPR, June 21, 2018, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/21/621752789/a-lost-secret-how-to-get-kids-to-pay-attention.

  Page 193 “It may be the case that children give up control of their attention . . .” Doucleff, “Lost Secret.”

  Page 193 “Whenever children enter middle school . . .” Research assistant interview with Richard Ryan, May 2017.

  Page 193 “Surveys I have conducted show that teens in the U.S. are subjected to more than ten times . . .” Robert Epstein, “The Myth of the Teen Brain,” Scientific American, June 1, 2007, www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-teen-brain-2007-06/.

  Page 193 “We’re doing a lot of controlling them in their school environments . . .” Interview with Ryan, May 2017.

  Page 195 “It is hard to find groups of children outdoors at all . . .” Peter Gray, “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathy in Children and Adolescents,” American Journal of Play 3, no. 4 (Spring 2011): 443–63.

  Page 195 “Whereas previous generations were allowed to simply play after school . . .” Esther Entin, “All Work and No Play: Why Your Kids Are More Anxious, Depressed,” Atlantic, October 12, 2011, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/all-work-and-no-play-why-your-kids-are-more-anxious-depressed/246422/.

  Page 195 “These concerns were mentioned even though kids today . . .” Christopher Ingraham, “There’s Never Been a Safer Time to Be a Kid in America,” Washington Post, April 14, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/.

  Page 196 “What the data show . . . is that kids who aren’t feeling relatedness . . .” Interview with Richard M. Ryan, May 2017.

  Page 196 “Since about 1955 . . . children’s free play has been continually declin
ing . . .” Gray, “Decline of Play.”

  Page 196 “We call this the ‘need density hypothesis.’” Interview with Ryan, May 2017.

  Page 196 “The more you’re not getting needs satisfied in life . . .” Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness (New York: Guilford Publications, 2017), 524.

  CHAPTER 31: MAKE TIME FOR TRACTION TOGETHER

  Page 199 “Make [the conversation] about how you’re treating and interacting with the people around you.” Research assistant interview with Lori Getz and family, May 2017.

  Page 203 “Given that, unstructured play is arguably their most important extracurricular activity.” Alison Gopnik, “Playing Is More Than Fun—It’s Smart,” Atlantic, August 12, 2016, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/08/in-defense-of-play/495545/.

  Page 203 “Studies demonstrate that children who eat regularly with their families . . .” Anne Fishel, “The Most Important Thing You Can Do with Your Kids? Eat Dinner with Them,” Washington Post, January 12, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-with-your-kids-eat-dinner-with-them/.

  CHAPTER 32: HELP THEM WITH EXTERNAL TRIGGERS

  Page 205 “According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study looking at youth and technology . . .” Monica Anderson and Jingjing Jiang, “Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018,” Pew Research Center, May 31, 2018, www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/.

  Page 205 “Not surprisingly, 72 percent of parents whose kids’ have a smartphone . . .” “Mobile Kids: The Parent, the Child and the Smartphone,” Nielsen Newswire, February 28, 2017, www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2017/mobile-kids-the-parent-the-child-and-the-smartphone.html.

  Page 207 “Such a phone can be purchased for less than twenty-five dollars . . .” AIEK/AEKU X8 Ultra Thin Card Mobile Phone Mini Pocket Students Phone, Aliexpress, accessed January 12, 2019, www.aliexpress.com/item/New-AIEK-AEKU-X8-Ultra-Thin-Card-Mobile-Phone-Mini-Pocket-Students-Phone-Low-Radiation-Support/32799743043.html.