Taking action on distraction

4 8 I N T E R A C T I O N S N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 016 Internet’s abundance of digital information—be it news, discussions, memes, music, videos—is alluring and may distract users is nothing new. However, adding to this type of distraction, a new type has emerged in which the user is rendered passive. This category is digital information as ubiquitous, instant notifications, reminders, alerts, and alarms that seemingly pop up out of the blue and demand the user’s attention during activities entirely unrelated to this information. In this scenario, we are no longer talking about Mark Weiser’s envisioned age of calm technology, in which ubiquitous computing gradually recedes into the background of our everyday life. Rather, we are talking Find a spartan room with a clear desk. Wear a pair of earplugs and over them noise-canceling, pink-noise-emitting headphones. Use a modified computer with no card for computer games and with the Ethernet port sealed to block Internet access. Now draw the curtains—and put on a blindfold. Then you have re-created what author Jonathan Franzen considered his distraction-free digital haven when he wrote his acclaimed novel The Corrections (2001). Extreme as this example may seem, it shows the lengths to which some individuals will go in order to fight what we consider an emerging trend in HCI: a significant increase in digital distractions. That the F Taking Action on Distraction Michael Mose Biskjaer, Peter Dalsgaard, and Kim Halskov, Aarhus University