The Age of Distraction

Sermon: March 1, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

The father of American psychology, William James, believed that one’s existence is made up of only what one pays attention to, whether by choice or by default. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us fall into a routine of letting our existences be made up of what we pay attention to by default. Most of us might say we “have to” pay attention to certain things, work, children, spouses, cleaning, cooking… all of the daily requirements of life on this planet. And we certainly do have to pay attention to them. In fact, sometimes they can feel so demanding that we welcome distraction, that the demands are so much that we’d prefer to steal a few minutes to relax into the world of social media rather than face the next thing on our to-do list. On top of this, we now live in a world of instant connection to others and to information, which makes it easier to slip into a world of distraction that is so ready to entertain you for likes and money. So, is the problem the world we’re living in or is it that we feel we need a certain level of distraction to survive it?

Let’s start with the idea that our existence is defined by what we pay attention to. While mulling over this concept, I decided to run an experiment. At the end of the day on Friday, which was my day off, I recounted my actions throughout the day, keeping in mind that every memory of my day was a reflection of what I paid attention to. First I chronicled the days events:

I woke up, helped my son get ready for his day, and drove him to school. 

I came back home and made my partner and myself breakfast.

I drove to the home of someone I’m working on an artistic project with and spent a few hours working with her.

I came home and then went to lunch with my partner.

Back at home, I talked to my mom and my kids. 

I then helped build a larger chicken coop for my chickens.

I watered my garden.

I called my best friend to wish him a happy 50th birthday.

I watched my kids play a video game they wanted to share with me.

I went online and started writing this sermon.

I watched TV then fell asleep.

Having chronicled the events, I thought I would turn to the actual memories of the events. Now, we all know that while doing certain activities, you may or may not actually pay attention to what you’re doing. Sometimes your mind is elsewhere, and sometimes distractions steal your attention despite your efforts to remain present. Looking more closely at my activities on Friday, I made a second list of what I remember actually paying attention to while doing those activities. These more adequately describe my memories, the images and sounds that I conjure when I look back at my experiences. Here’s that list:

The sound of my alarm

Being careful not to burn toast

My son eating breakfast

Processing driving directions

Music notation

French pronunciation

Stories of Africa

The sound of a landscaper’s power tool outside a window

The heat

My partner’s voice

The saltiness of french fries

My mother’s ease of spirit

Iced tea

My chickens

The sunset

A mosquito

Water

My best friend

Violence in Puerto Vallarta

A video game

My children

Back pain

Philosophy

World and national news

The TV

That’s not a bad day of memories. I then decided to put all these sense memories into categories and I arrived with the following categories:

4 things associated with negative emotions: My alarm, the heat, violence in Puerto Vallarta, back pain, world and national news

3 things that took concentration: Being careful not to burn toast, processing driving directions, writing this sermon

5 beautiful humans: both my sons, my partner, my mother, my best friend

3 inspiring things: music, stories, philosophy

4 pleasant things: the saltiness of french fries, iced tea, the sunset, my garden

2 distracting things: the sound of the landscaper, a mosquito

2 mindless things: a video game, the TV

Overall, that’s 22 things I paid attention to throughout the day that I could recall at the end of it. Those things were made up of 4 negative things, 12 positive things, and 6 things that aren’t really either. And in between each of those 22 things that I recalled were infinite moments that I clearly didn’t pay attention to.

When I look at these statistics, I think they are a relatively good reflection of how I’m perceiving my life: more positively than negatively. Granted, it was a nice day. Perhaps other days wouldn’t fair so well. As I moved on in my data collection process, I looked at the items and categorized them as things I paid attention to on purpose and things I paid attention to by default and this is where it gets more interesting:

I figure I paid attention to 5 things by default (three of which I considered negative: the gardener noise, the mosquito, and back pain). I paid attention to 16 things on purpose (two of which I considered negative: world and national news and the violence in Puerto Vallarta.) Clearly, most of what I paid attention to was on purpose and the majority of those things were positive.

Now, some of these items that I put in the category of “paid attention to on purpose” were not things I actually made happen on purpose. For example, the sunset. I didn’t go outside on purpose to view the sunset. However, while I was working on the chicken coop the sun happened to be setting and I noticed how beautiful it was. I chose to pay attention to something that could be described as a distraction from my task at hand. I could have easily been so focused on the chicken wire and the zip ties that I didn’t notice the sunset, but I did and I then chose to take a moment to experience it. So, not everything in the “on purpose” category were manufactured experiences, some happened by chance, but I still chose to pay attention to them rather than not. 

This exercise in noting what I pay attention to was a really useful and insightful practice. I realized that my memories, my personal existence, is mostly based on people and my senses, which is a rather present existence. I was pleased to find that I experienced moments of beauty throughout my day. When it comes to the things I would consider negative distractions, those were fleeting. And I believe my values dictate that I spend time paying attention to the often frighteningly negative world news. So overall, I was rather pleased with how I am experiencing life. I plan to do this practice more often to take the temperature of how I’m experiencing this one precious life I’ve been given.

After examining one day of my life, I realized there was one thing missing from my experiences that day, one trap I know I fall into on occasion, the trap of inviting distractions into my life to try and escape a negative emotion. Nowadays, it’s easy to pick up one’s phone and scroll through social media or play a game to try and avoid doing something you don’t want to do, or talk to someone you don’t want to talk to, but this is not a new concept. People have probably done this for all of eternity, but the distraction methods have changed over time and today are heavily influenced by the presence of technology. For example, in the evening when I watch TV, I have to keep my hands busy. This could be by playing a game on my phone, doing a crossword puzzle, knitting, sewing or doing any kind of “busy work” that feels preferably repetitive and thus meditative. I often don’t watch the TV, but just listen to it while I’ll focus on whatever I have in my hands. Now, if I were alive 100 years ago, I clearly wouldn’t be on my phone, but I might just as well have been darning socks or doing embroidery or something else that would have helped my brain wind down at the end of the day. And clearly our brains need such distractions from time to time. 

Not all distraction is bad. Oliver Burkeman, an author who writes about purposeful and meaningful living, describes how most people perceive that they are at war with distractions, as though distractions are all outside forces meant to lure you away from your own life against your will. We have all seen friends get sucked into the black hole of social media, and perhaps we’ve felt that pull as well, but as Burkeman says, “You don’t get dragged away against your will. You surrender willingly. It’s a relief to turn from the unpleasantness of a challenging work task, or a moment of boredom while caring for a child, to scroll through your phone instead. If there’s a “war for our attention” – as we’re often told – our role often seems to be that of collaborators with the enemy.”

Ouch. 

I have been that parent who has reached for my phone while caring for my child, even though I theoretically wanted to be present with them. At any other time, if asked which activity I wanted to give my attention to, I would have said my child ten times out of ten. So, why would I reach for my phone? It wasn’t lack of will power or the siren song of a digital world. It was a need to disengage from what I felt like I was stuck doing. Burkeman says, “Meaningful work stretches you, bringing you up against the edge of your talent. Difficult conversations are difficult because you don’t get to control how they’ll unfold. Boredom descends whenever you wish something was happening other than what’s happening now, and can’t do anything about it. In all such cases, an internal force urges you to distract yourself as a way to escape a negative feeling. Mark Zuckerberg just found an especially cunning way to take advantage when you do so.” So, are we really in an Age of Distraction? Or are we just in an age of people profiting off of our own natural need for distraction? 

In 1971, polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote about the now 55 years old “modern” struggle. He said, “What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” That was back in 1971 before computers and the internet brought the world with all the information it contained into immediate accessibility at our fingertips. This access to infinite and immediate information consumes our attention at alarming rates.

If we’re living in a poverty of attention, then how do we back off the informational input? There is a very real need to pay attention to some things that negatively affect us and consume our attention. We can’t ignore the news, what’s going on in our communities, in our nation, and abroad. We need to stay informed and aware. We can’t go through life like a horse with blinders on, only paying attention to what’s right in front of us, to what’s positive. It is easy for us to blame the influences of a fast-paced, digitally driven world, to blame the social media influencers, the advertisers, the app designers, the game developers, and all who profit off of our attention. But the answer to this conundrum actually has nothing to do with the outside world. It lies in self awareness. 

What are you paying attention to and as a result, what life are you living? What are you choosing for your existence to be? Are you choosing the distractions you want to be choosing? Ones that are helpful and add beauty to your life? Ones you need? Are you paying attention to moments that are gifted to you unexpectedly? How much of your life is defined by positive moments? What about negative? How does that affect your experience of life? What balance works best for you, between negative and positive, between paying attention on purpose and by default? It’s not going to be the same as everyone else. You may need to distract yourself away from the consistent flow of information, you may need to use that same information flow as a helpful distraction from time to time, you may need to pay more attention to nature, you may want to give your attention to community concerns. No one can find the right balance for you except you. 

I encourage you to examine your own life without judgement to see where you’re paying attention. While we can’t control everything that will receive our attention, we can become aware of how we’re experiencing life and thus begin to make some decisions to steer our existence toward what we want it to be.

May it be so. Amen.

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Poet Hieu Minh Nguyen

“Time is a conversation that continues to move whether or not you are paying attention.”

A Prayer to See Beauty in Everything

by Rachel Britton

Lord God, I want to see the little things

That bring beauty to my day

That make me smile and grateful to be alive.

I want to be attentive to

Even the tiniest way in which

You show your love and care for me.

When I’m overwhelmed by my circumstances,

When I’m fearful of the days ahead,

When I’m sad and upset,

Show me how to be

thankful

For every little thing that is delightful,

For every single person who is wonderful,

For even one moment when I experience

Your peace, love, and grace

In my life.

Amen

Who We Listen to is Who We Become

Rev. Scott Tayler

Sometimes the world outside us can be so loud,

making it hard to hear those voices we once knew so well,

voices that once knew us so well.

And so to silence we turn, to listen for 

the echoes of memories that make us whole, 

the pain of others that reawakens our hearts,

and the beauty of this wildly generous world that wants us back.

This is the attention that saves us, heals us, opens us, expands us. 

So, friends, in the stillness of this space,

let us not just listen for clarity and guidance,

but to become larger.

Those voices, whispering from deep within, are not just calling us home; they are home.

We must remember this: What we give our attention to is what we become.

Yes, sometimes the world outside us can be so loud, leaving us lost.

But the quiet always remains,

waiting and willing to be our companion,

gently calling us 

to shift our attention,

and reclaim ourselves.