I can’t believe it took me this long to think about this crazy extreme distraction, especially since I am an advertising major. I mean come on! The very core purpose of an ad is to distract. An ad is supposed to grab your attention from whatever it was you were doing and get you looking/thinking about that specific product/brand. In-fact, if an ad doesn’t distract you from what you were previously doing/thinking it isn’t doing its job and I get fired as an advertiser. I personally think the most distracting are digital computer ads. They literally take up 40% of almost every web page, begging you to look at them. Don’t even get me started on pop-up ads. Talk about distracting. Nowadays there is also what is knows as remarketing. This is where you are looking at something, lets say a new shirt on Amazon and then for the next week ads for that specific shirt pop up all over the web pages you are looking at. Pretty creepy as well as awfully distracting. I get on the computer to check what the weather is and the next thing I know I’m clicking through a slideshow of random products.

I though this would be appropriate considering it is Thanksgiving, which happens to be my favorite holiday of the year. The smell of good food can be extremely distracting for myself, especially when I am hungry. For instance, I am currently trying as hard as I can to one, not eat until dinner and two, write this blog post. The problem is that my wonderful mother is downstairs baking away, which is producing all sorts of great aromas. We always do Thanksgiving at my grandparent’s house so all the turkey and stuff is over there, but my mom is in charge of desert so we have all kinds of pies getting baked up in here. Our whole house smells like apple pie! How’s a hungry 22-year old supposed to get anything done when our house smells like the inside of a bakery?

Another example of this happens at my office. There is a subway underneath our building. You might be thinking, “so what, a Subway…” which is perfectly reasonable if you have never either worked in a Subway, or worked/lived directly above a Subway. What most people don’t know is that every morning they bake their bread fresh, on the spot. Every single morning our office smells like amazing, freshly baked bread. Typically, I only have time to eat an apple/banana/hard boiled egg on my way out the door. So I am usually still fairly hungry when I get to work. Trying to get work done in the morning is a serious struggle when all I can think about is inhaling a delicious Subway sandwich.

This is something I have come to realize more and more over the past few years of my life. This is of course the extreme distraction that animals, specifically little furry ones, have on me. Growing up my family always had dogs… and a bunny… and hamsters… and hermit crabs… and fish… and I never really noticed them as being that big of a distraction to me. It wasn’t until college until I noticed that any time I saw I a little puppy walking around my full and undivided attention was drawn to it. Perhaps this is because of the lack of exposure to animals you have while in college. Especially for me, going from animals all over the place to occasionally seeing a dog walking around on campus. I don’t necessarily feel the need to drop what I am doing and run over to pet the little guy, but I definitely get fully distracted from what I was previously doing. How could you not? They are adorable.

Terrorism. Its real, and its terrifying. I can think of one specific time where every American dropped what they were doing and stood in front of their television with disbelief. Tuesday morning on September 11^th, 2001. I am writing this post today on this topic because of how largely it effects us. Only hours ago a large scale terrorist attack was reported in Paris, France. Every person in my office completely dropped what they were doing to head into our conference room to see what was unfolding. Immediately I got on my phone because one of my good buddies is actually in Paris right now, teaching English. Being worried about someone you care about is the ultimate distraction. It is the only thing going through your head and you cannot begin to think about anything else. Luckily I was able to get ahold of my friend who is over there and he is ok. After learning that he was alright, I tried to sit back down and get to work. Tried is the key word there. I can’t stop thinking about what is going on in Paris right now and how atrocious some people in this world are. And honestly that is how terrorism works, it puts fear into everyone. Looking back now at times in my life where I was truly worried about someone, I can honestly say that is the most distracting thing for me. Now I can start to understand why being a parent is so hard. Prayers to France.

Alright everyone, prepare for another weird one that is probably only distracting for me. And by everyone I mean professor Leggette and maybe one other person who stumbles across my blog. So if that person is you, congratulations. You probably won’t relate to this distraction at all. One of my biggest pet peeves for myself and other people I interact with is dirty fingernails. It may be because I am a germaphobe or a minor form of OCD or a mixture of both. For whatever reason, I absolutely can’t have dirt under my finger nails. I am constantly checking them throughout the day, picking at them, and washing my hands. It is definitely a distraction for me. I wouldn’t say a huge distraction because a lot of the time I can sit there and like pick at them to clean them out while I read or do something that doesn’t require using my hands.

The distraction comes when I am doing something and notice that there is dirt or something under my nails. At that moment I will completely drop whatever it is that I am doing to deal with that world ending problem. I have even let it distract me from Oregon football games. I have literally missed touchdown plays because I was looking down, making sure my finger nails were clean. The other half of it is when other people have dirty finger nails. I always seem to notice when other people have dirty finger nails, even if I’m not actively trying to. Then instead of engaging that person in a stimulating conversation, I’m not paying attention to what they are saying and looking back and forth between their eyes and their hands. And honestly it just grosses me out when people have dirty fingernails. Maybe that is another reason why I always make sure mine are clean.

Ok I will be the first one to admit this is a little weird so I wouldn’t be shocked if I am the only person who gets distracted by this. I am talking of course about people walking behind me/standing behind me. An example of what I am talking about is when you’re walking somewhere, class, lunch, work, whatever, and someone starts walking directly behind you. I don’t know if this is just me but it can be so distracting to the point where I could almost characterize it as anxiety. You can hear that they are right behind you tailgating your bumper and its like jeez guy back off a little. You know what I’m talking about. You keep looking at things to your far left and right to see if you can catch where they are in your periphs. This is so annoying to me and with annoyance comes distraction. This bugs me so much that I make it a point not to tailgate people when I’m walking somewhere. I either slow way down or speed walk past them so I’m not walking right on their heels like a goon. Maybe this is just me, I don’t know.

The other form of this that is definitely more distracting to me is when I am sitting down trying to work on something and someone walks behind me or stands behind me. Again this might just be me, I am weird. Maybe it is just Wild Bill Hickok and myself with this pet peeve. In case you aren’t familiar, the story goes that Wild Bill (notorious wild West outlaw) would always sit so that his back was to a wall so that no one could walk up behind him. Although I am not necessarily worried about someone coming up and trying to shoot me in the back in a saloon I still don’t like people walking around behind me. It is unnerving to me.

This is the most distracting when I am either sitting at my desk at work, or at the library trying to study. My desk may be set up in the worst possible spot in the office with regards to my issue about people behind me. This is because the printer/copier is located directly behind me, so there is a constant flow of people walking up behind me and standing back there working on something. It’s not that I’m worried about them seeing what I am doing, it just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That is because us humans have this primal spider like sense that alerts us when someone or something is behind us. Maybe this sense is just extra sensitive for me but every time there is someone back there working on something my spider senses start tingling which is unbelievably distracting.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. However, loud noises are a serious distraction for me. I am a very curious person by nature. For the most part I think it is a good thing. I also think that at times it can be a negative thing. This is because whenever I hear a noise that I am not familiar with, my brain instantly switches to “figure out what that was,” mode. Most of the time I have the self-control to not actually drop what I’m doing, get up, and go investigate. Though, the mental distraction can sometimes be just as detrimental to whatever I was previously working on.

The office I work in is pretty old. It has been in Portland since the early 1900s and was originally the power station that supplied energy to all the street cars. Our office is on the second floor of the building and has huge, two story glass windows on all sides. The problem for me is that they are all old, single pane glass. That combined with only being one floor off the ground can make for some noisiness. Constant beeping, alarms, car engines, sirens, barking and even people talking loudly are things I struggle with every day. And the crows across the street. Don’t even get me started on the crows. Loud noises are definitely my kryptonite when trying to get work done. When I find my mind wandering too much I typically throw in the ear buds to try and fight the curiosity.

We’ve all been there. Sitting at our desk, in the library, on the bus, or in front of your computer trying to write a blog. Regardless of the situation it is one of the most annoying and distracting happenings because there is nothing you can do about it. Constantly switching back and forth between sniffling and blowing your nose. Trying to figure out the perfect ratio of sniffles to nose blows that won’t annoying the people around you. The worst is when you aren’t even sick, which is my current situation. I had a cold like three weeks ago how can I still have a runny nose? You sit there, day after day thinking, “Why is this happening? Its October it couldn’t be allergies! Am I dying?” You begin to question everything you thought you knew. Well, maybe its not that drastic for most people. I guess after two weeks of feeling completely healthy but constantly having to blow my nose all day every day I am starting to lose it. If I could find the little guy in my nose who is causing me this heartache, I would give him the old one-two punch. Just kidding. I’m a lover not a fighter. But, I would certainly ring his door bell and run or something, so that he too could know the same annoyance and distraction that I feel (I like to picture him as that troll guy from the Mucinex commercials). Definitely starting to lose it.

There are two levels of distraction that come from a runny nose; physical and mental. The physical comes first and is experienced by everyone who has a runny nose. The second comes after constantly battling and being beaten down by the runny nose gods, which is the case for me. The physical distraction comes from having to stop what you’re doing, take your eyes off of it, reach over for a tissue, and proceed to the actual blowing of your nose. I have found this level to be especially distracting when you’re trying to drive/operate heavy machinery, i.e. a car. This level of distraction is without a doubt very annoying, but it gets 1000x worse when it starts to mentally distract you. Now, not only do you have to physically look away from what you’re doing, when you finish the act of blowing your nose you’re still thinking about it. How am I supposed to write a solid blog post when all I can think about is ding-dong-ditching an imaginary troll in my nose?

Last week I brought up the idea of digital fear of missing out, (FOMO) but I didn’t dive very deep into it. FOMO is a very real thing for me, especially when I was back in Eugene taking classes. Any time I had to stay in for whatever reason it was hard to stay focused. I would feel anxious and restless because I felt like I was going to miss something crazy. Even though more often than not it was walking to Taylor’s and spending too much money, hop over to Webfoot and spend too much money, and then stumble down to Max’s and eat too much popcorn or peanuts. So is it that irrational to think that digital FOMO is a real thing? I think that 20 years ago the answer would be, yes. Today though, 2015, I would definitely argue that it is. We live in culture that is run by social media. Well, for my generation at least.

And I am no saint. I am definitely guilty of having digital FOMO. It is something I struggle with every damn day of my life. Ok, so maybe its not that big of an issue but still it is something that I do mindlessly. For instance this weekend I was with some people at a bar in the Pearl (I think it was On Deck) watching the Oregon vs Colorado football game. Now I love Oregon football more than anything in the world. That’s not true. Regardless, I’m a huge fan; been going to games since I could walk. So we are sitting here and I catch my self on scrolling through Snapchat, re-watching people’s snap stories that I’ve already seen. To make sure I didn’t miss something? I have no idea. I finally realize what I’m doing and actually feel disgusted with myself. I am out with people, watching (supposed to be watching) a very close Oregon game and yet I’m sitting on my phone watching old snaps. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Go Ducks

Why did my phone light up? This question runs through my head hundreds of times a day. Drawing my eyes away from whatever I was previously looking at. Did someone text or call me? Did someone send me a Snapchat or tag me in an Instagram? Did someone on my Fantasy Football team get injured? Did the Oregon Ducks just sign a new recruit? Did my phone even light up at all? Or is my brain just tricking me because deep down, buried in my subconscious I wanted it to? I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. Personally, my phone is my biggest distraction. There are times where I find myself picking it up, opening it, and then closing it for absolutely no reason. Immediately afterwards asking myself, why did I just do that. I have found that this type of behavior tends to become more frequent when I’m doing tasks that I do not particularly want to be doing; i.e. studying.

I have actually done a pretty good job of not getting distracted by my phone while working on this post. However, I think that is because I would not be able to live with myself if I let myself get distracted by my phone while writing about getting distracted by my phone. It is kind of funny because I am actively aware of how distracting my phone is to me, yet I do nothing to change it. I guess it’s not really that funny. Though, I don’t think this is a problem that only I suffer with. It seems like everyone is glued to his or her phones nowadays. I ride the city bus into my office every day and it is nowhere more apparent than there. Almost every single person has his or her head down, staring at their phone. So why are phones so distracting? I personally think it comes almost from this digital FOMO (fear of missing out). When my phone lights up and I can’t check it immediately I think I feel like I might be missing out on something important.