Quotes About Distraction

For one woman, a college sophomore, "It's very special when someone turns away from a text to turn to a person." For a senior man, "If someone gets a text and apologizes and silences it [their phone], that sends a signal that they are there, they are listening to you.

I've talked so much about virtuous circles; here is a vicious cycle. Knowing we have someplace "else" to go in a moment of boredom leaves us less experienced at exploring our inner lives and therefore more likely to want the stimulation of what is on our phones.

Often it is children who tell their parents to put away the cell phone at dinner.

What is a place if those who are physically present have their attention on the absent? At a café a block from my home, almost everyone is on a computer or smartphone as they drink their coffee. These people are not my friends, yet somehow I miss their presence.

Ray, twenty-eight, comments on what it's like to have a relationship when you compete with screens: "I think the way we're going, a lot of people are getting the feeling that even though the person they're with is there, you don't get the feeling of real connection. You just have information.

Once we become tethered to the network, we really don't need to keep computers busy. THEY KEEP US BUSY.

But at the same time, there is pressure to use technology in classroom in ways that make conversation nearly impossible. Interestingly, this technology is often presented as supporting student "engagement.

Our capacity for solitude is undermined as soon as we introduce a screen.

Far too often, especially under stress (and few things could have been more stressful than the Entebbe crisis), we turn inward and close down. Believing that distraction is the greatest danger, our analysis simplifies in hope of increasing not the odds of success, necessarily, but the chance we will be certain about what the outcome will be.

Most people have a double or triple notion in one activity. There is a saying, "To catch two birds with one stone." That is what people usually try to do. Because they want to catch too many birds they find it difficult to be concentrated on one activity, and they may end up not catching any birds at all!

One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship.

Shiny first. Pastries later.

Oh, God. I'm in big trouble. Because I'm staring. I can't keep my eyes from ogling his chiseled triceps and biceps and every other "eps ' he has. The butterflies in my stomach have just multiplied tenfold as my wandering gaze meets his.

Stop thinking about Michael," Tuck orders. "He was cute." "So is a hairy ferret but I wouldn't want to date one. [...]

Choking the gopher. What'd you think I'd do, my homework?

And then Gwalchmai said, 'No one should distract an ordained knight from his thoughts in a discourteous way, for perhaps he has either suffered a loss or he is thinking about the woman he loves best.

To forget is ordinary. Even people in mourning, distracted by some little happiness, forget the dead.

Pure love of God is our nature, but we are so much diverted, so much distracted by the externals that we've forgotten that it's our essence.

I love it. It's something I can do that makes everything else disappear.

I love to cook. But I'm a bit rubbish. I tend to start something and then dip into a book or have a conversation and come back and everything's burnt.

I love going to movies. It's just big, it takes you away, you can escape into it.

I love reading; it's a great way to avoid writing.

People love escapism and there should be a place for it.

She decided to sleep with him and get it over with. It was the only way. He had become an annoying jingle, striking in the shower, or at work, or just as she was falling asleep. She had to at least kiss him deeply and completely, in a way that left nothing behind. So she could move on. So she could stop imagining it. She couldn't keep losing herself to the jingle. It was impairing her ability to function.