“In Defense of Distraction” by Sam Anderson has many different claims along the way but eventually reveals the overall claim that there is a balance of distraction that is crucial to a successful life. To complicate his argument, Anderson also proves it necessary to pull apart the negative impacts of technological distractions, which I find to weigh his argument more in the direction of negativity rather than exploring both sides evenly. Anderson’s claim that maintaining balance is important is one that I, personally, would have to agree with. Allowing yourself to become completely infatuated with technology can stop you from focusing on the other things in life that you really need to focus on like school, work, health, and so on. However, I am also able to see the negative side effects of being too focused and not being able to let loose and relax. One of the reasons I believe distractions are necessary is because it allows us to make connections. What I mean by this is when you are reading a text, you are able to make connections from the text to yourself, other texts, and the world. The only reason you make connections is because you aren’t totally focused on the text you’re reading, you’re also thinking about other things like things connecting to the text. I also agree with Anderson’s points about the negative impacts of technological distractions. Anderson compared our over absorption of information to being obese, the term he used being “mentally obese”, and also began describing how technology is pushing us into a dark age. To clarify, the dark age being that we are totally overcome by distractions. Again, I agree with this claim, seeing as technology is releasing us from our need for basic skills like talking to each other. We become so invested in who are online that we don’t pay attention to the life we are actually living. This inability to live in the moment and take in the world is going to dump society into a mind numbing existence. By maintaining balance, we are ensuring that we are able to avoid this seemingly inevitable event.
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