By Express News Service BENGALURU: At first I didn’t want to believe the inconvenient truth behind what really drives distraction. But after digesting the scientific literature, I had to face the fact that the motivation for diversion originates within us. As is the case with all human behaviour, distraction is just another way our brains attempt to deal with pain. If we accept this fact, it makes sense that the only way to handle distraction is by learning to handle discomfort. If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management. But where does our discomfort come from? Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? We live in the safest, healthiest, most well- educated, most democratic time in human history, 1 and yet some part of the human psyche causes us to constantly look for an escape from things stirring inside us. As the eighteenth-century English writer Samuel Johnson put it, ‘My life is one long escape from myself.’ Me too, brother, me too. Thankfully, we can take solace in knowing we are hardwired for this sort of dissatisfaction. Sorry to say, but the odds are that you and I are never going to be fully satisfied with our lives. Sporadic bouts of joy, sure. Occasional euphoria? Yes. Singing ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams in your underwear once in a while? OK, who hasn’t? But the sustained ‘happily ever after’ sort of satisfaction you see in the movies? Forget it. It’s a myth. That sort of happiness is designed never to last for long. Aeons of evolution gave you a brain in a near- constant state of discontentment. We’re wired this way for a simple reason: as a study published in Review of General Psychology notes, ‘If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.’ 3 In other words, feeling contented wasn’t good for the species. Our ancestors worked harder and strove further because they evolved to be perpetually perturbed, and so we remain today. Unfortunately, the same evolutionary traits that helped our kin survive by driving them to constantly do more can conspire against us today.Four psychological factors make satisfaction temporary. Let’s begin with the first factor: boredom. The lengths people will go to avoid boredom is shocking, sometimes literally so. A 2014 study published in Science asked participants to sit in a room and think for fifteen minutes. The room was empty except for a device that allowed participants to give themselves a mild but painful electric shock. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ you might ask. When asked beforehand, every participant in the study said they would pay to avoid getting an electric shock. However, when left alone in the room with the machine and nothing else to do, 67 per cent of men and 25 per cent of women gave themselves electric shocks, and many did so multiple times. The authors conclude their paper by saying, ‘People prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.’ It’s no surprise, therefore, that most of the top twenty- five websites in America sell escape from our daily drudgery, whether through shopping, celebrity gossip or bite-sized doses of social interaction. Excerpted from Indistractable by Nir Eyal with Julie Li, with permission from Bloomsbury Publishing.

Stay updated with all the Bangalore Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.