Internet Distraction: A Complete Guide to Overcoming It

Internet distraction is a common phenomenon in our society. We all share the experience of sitting down in front of the computer with the intention of doing something very specific and ending up diverting our attention towards something else on the internet. Typical examples of internet distraction include:

• We are searching for information about a specific topic. We find a very interesting article, which links to other interesting articles. These interesting articles, in turn, link to other interesting articles.  We end up with 20 tabs open on our browser and reading information completely unrelated to our original search.
• We are working on something important on the computer. However, we are constantly interrupted by new emails coming into our inbox, notifications from social media, or chat conversations on Slack.
• We are working on something important, but we are getting bored. So, we end up checking what’s happening on the news, social media, or our favourite websites as a way to procrastinate what needs to be done anyway.

The result of these common experiences is always the same:

• We deviate our attention from important goals, waste our precious time, and need to spend more time in front of the computer to accomplish our initial goals. Importantly, this prompts us to take time from other important areas of our life (e.g. the time with our family, partner, or friends, time for doing exercise, and time for pursuing our dreams) to dedicate to the tasks we didn’t finish due to falling prisoner to internet distractions.

The benefits of overcoming internet distraction

For many years, I have been trapped in internet distractions. I have wasted a lot of time with social media, news outlets, YouTube, etc. Four years ago, I started experimenting with different strategies to overcome my own problems with internet distractions. These strategies have been invaluable to me for:

• Increasing my productivity, i.e. getting more of the important things done in less time
• Having more free time to dedicate to other pursuits such as socializing with my friends, learning new skills, and taking up new hobbies.
• Getting more value from the information on the internet because of my higher selectivity
• Having better job opportunities because of my increase in productivity
• Being happier because I accomplished more, had more free time, and felt more relaxed

Me relaxing at Porthgwarra Beach on a hiking day

You can also overcome internet distractions and experience all these positive effects for your career, work-life balance, and personal happiness. Fortunately for you, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You have in this guide all the tips you need to overcome internet distraction once and for all.  

Why willpower isn’t the solution

Many people believe that the way to overcome internet distraction is just simply willpower. However, this approach has two problems.

First, willpower is like “a muscle” – “it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things” (Mark Muraven, cited in Charles Duhigg, The power of habit, 2012, p. 137). Once you have used willpower to resist one temptation (e.g. unhealthy food) becomes more challenging to use willpower again to resist another temptation (e.g. checking social media).

Second, the main source of income for many online businesses (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) is advertisement. This means that they offer you their service for free. Then, they sell your attention to other companies. Consequently, they need you to spend as much time as possible on their websites. That’s why they have an army of programmers working on features to break your self-control. That’s why, after watching a video, YouTube autoplays another one for you; Facebook and Twitter have a news feed; and all this type of business have a “like” button.

The solution to internet distraction

The solution to overcome internet distraction requires that your willpower muscles don’t get tired. The best way to do this is to design a system that makes it impossible for you to get trapped in internet distractions at the times you should be accomplishing important goals. I refer to goals such as writing a book, developing a product, or learning a second language.

What you are going to learn in this guide

In this guide, I teach you how to design your own system of work without distractions. To this end, I describe three general strategies to overcome internet distraction and explain different ways in which you can implement each of them.

These three strategies are:

• Maximize your time offline (Chapters 2-3)
• Whitelist a few websites and block the rest (Chapter 4)
• Minimize your time on distracting websites (Chapters 5-6)

You should take these strategies as a menu of options for designing your own system. You don’t have to restrict yourself to only one strategy. On the contrary, you are going to find a combination of strategies or the use of different strategies at different times the most effective way to overcome internet distractions and accomplish your own goals.

Do you need to spend money to overcome internet distraction?

The strategies presented in this guide require the use of website/app blocking software. Using this type of software is the best way I know to overcome internet distractions while working in front of a computer with access to the internet.

In this guide, I describe how to use free and paid website blocking software by the company Freedom.

Why Freedom? This is the software I have been using for the last three years. I consider Freedom is the best website/app blocker in the market right now because:

1. It’s easy to use.
2. It’s cheap.
3. You can control the settings for multiple devices from a single device.
4. It works for the browsers Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Edge. I have tried with less known browsers and it works too.
5. It works for the operating systems Windows, Mac, IOS, Android, Chromebook, and Linux.

Yes, I’d make a commission if you decide to purchase it through the links on this website. This doesn’t entail any additional costs for you.

Let’s beging with the first strategy: Maximize your time offline

Ángel V. Jiménez