Economics of distractions sounds like a PhD dissertation. Maybe I should go back to college and get a doctorate. Maybe I wouldn’t be surprised that someone else has already written about it. In reality, I’m hearing about football tickets, trying to find a quiet restaurant, and noticing how easy it is to fall into computers and smartphones. Distractions. Distractions. Distractions. What would we, or at least I, do without them?

Pardon me as I do a quick search on the price of Super Bowl tickets. Eep! They start, start!, at over $2,000. The max, according to my search, is over $60,000. Even the average is almost $9,000. For four hours of entertainment? Yipes! A week’s wages, a month’s pay, a year’s salary for the time between two meals. They can ask those prices because they can sell those tickets. And then there is food, lodging, travel, possibly betting, possibly mental health counseling if the team loses, probable infrastructure repair. Fascinating.

As a society, we spend billions of dollars on an event held between millionaires playing for billionaires in stadiums paid for by taxpayers in cities that have homeless and hungry people. Oh yeah, and then there are the ads for luxuries that have little to do with normal people.

I live alone, so no one gets to see me shake my head at the absurdity.

But it is only an absurdity to me.

Sports are popular. They are about games, but the majority of people involved are fans, spectators who enjoy the distraction of ranting and raving about things that can sound vital but are really trivial. Ah, but ranting and raving can be therapeutic, so there’s a mental health benefit. Maybe that’s worth it.

Change of topic

I am a fan of socializing, dancing, parties, basically things where people being with people are the main thing. Conversations are key for me. At someone’s home, it is easy to control the volume. Even dancing doesn’t require blasting eardrums. How else can socializing happen at a social dance event? Head-banging parties are visceral, cathartic, and other multi-syllabic words that ironically describe events where words can’t be heard.

As we come out of our protective shells (possibly too early), I’m glad to see that people want to talk with people. Conversations are happening again, or at least trying to. Restaurants have learned that a loud environment encourages extra spending. People resort to eating and drinking even more when they find they are sitting in a space for long enough. Conversations can last a long time, but look at romantic lovers who forget to eat or drink because they are engaging enough. Try to find a place for a romantic meeting, however, and don’t be surprised if the place charges more.

Want to live someplace quiet, without distractions? Pay. Want a quiet car? Pay. Want a quiet vacation? Pay.

Change of topic

Computers and smartphones (which, of course, are computers) command attention. Life and society existed before them, but now we’ve integrated them into every aspect of our existence. We have convinced ourselves that the answers are in the boxes. Even bureaucracies require us to obey computers, which can frequently be distracting as simply saying Yes or No can inspire a chase of files, usernames, passwords, two-step authentications, updates and downloads. It feels more vital because we’ve done so much to get something done. Paper and pen were cheaper and slower, but use a computer long enough and it must be replaced with something that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, and comes equipped with software and services that add up to that much in subscriptions.

Television wasn’t immune. How many people need the distraction of watching shows that are preferred to being quiet, or at least quieter?

Be with each other, or simply alone. No ads required. Hyperbole by choice rather than delivery.

I am not immune. Music, shows, videos, movies, I ask them to distract me from overthinking things. Their distractions are welcomed to help me do dull chores. Unfortunately, entertainments become necessities, even though they are not. In the meantime, none of them are free. Even if they don’t charge money, their providers get something from our attentions, and we spend time providing it.

I realized this about myself during the lockdown part of Covid. How to fill the time?

I write. I like shows and movies and such, but I soon realized that I liked my stories more than I liked rewatching other stories, or watching stories about characters who weren’t engaging to me. There may be a nobility to writing, but I realized I was writing as a distraction. Carry me away to, in my case, a science fiction story about people escaping a malevolent Artificial Intelligence, or a fun series of essays about tea, or a possible movie about a 14-year-old spoiled brat who has to grow up quickly on board a sailing ship in 1876. Yes, there’s a nobility to writing, supposedly, and yes, I need the money (and still do); but one of the major influences was how to distract me as a single guy who can’t spend much while responsible friends are acting responsibly cautious?

Summary, sort of

We are born with few distractions. They are vital distractions and we can’t articulate them, even though they are few. As we mature, obligations are layered on us, and distractions provide temporary refuges from those obligations. It is easy, however, to redefine those distractions as vital enough to be worth paying for. Thousands of dollars for a few hours of a distraction? That’s an interesting example of needs and wants, values and morals, peer pressure versus self-care.

Human needs are inherently simple. Life requires little for food, shelter, and such – on an individual basis. Civilized society requires those layers we drape across ourselves and then carry around with pride at being able to handle the burden. Of course, our civilization makes it possible to accommodate billions of people instead of however many can be self-sufficient.

But I remind myself that I have layered myself with obligations, and then lay distractions on to counter their weight.

I wonder what life would be like if sports were played more than watched, if any time and place people want to gather, they could do so with what they can say and do, and if we ruled our tools and used them temporarily rather than continually.

How much more could we get done, how much better could we live, or at least how much more could I do and how much better could I live if there was less time and money spent on distractions?