Finding meaning beyond the scroll: How one author manages digital distraction | Canada Voices

In the new book The Practice of Attention: Cultivating Presence in a Distracted World, Cody Cook-Parrott says it’s no longer realistic to think we can win back our focus through screentime limits or the occasional digital detox.

The more bewildering task is making the hours reclaimed from scrolling meaningful again. That’s daunting for generations who’ve grown up online, who want to recoup their time but are reluctant to step away from social media and lose connections.

With striking candour, millennial artist Cook-Parrott details an embarrassing but highly relatable addiction to social media.

“I was so far gone from being able to do anything for more than a few minutes at a time without scrolling for a dopamine hit,” the author writes. “To make anything with heart and quality, our brains must keep a steady focus for more than a few minutes, and my attention was fractured seemingly beyond repair.”

Cook-Parrott spoke with The Globe about deactivating Instagram, resurfacing to life offline, getting to know neighbours and reconsidering church.

I quit my smartphone for two weeks to see if I’d have a better life

For you, digital detoxing isn’t about becoming more productive. It’s about finding meaning beyond the scroll. Tell me about this newer approach to online distraction.

For years, I would take Instagram off my phone. Then I’d think, “Now what? How do I spend my time?” The book looks at, what are the replacement behaviours? How can we fill our lives so much that we don’t even want to reach for our phones? This is so addictive that we need a replacement step, as well as looking at why we’re reaching for the phone in the first place.

You see scrolling as a form of avoidance. Instead of working on pressing, daunting tasks, we check e-email. How do you curb this type of self-interruption?

I recently switched to a Wisephone. There’s no e-mail, web browser or social media. All you can really do is text. When I’m done texting, I put it down. On a phone with Wi-Fi, you can follow a thread forever until you’re exhausted.

When I’m really getting to work, the phone is in the other room. I use a website blocker on my computer. I need a lot of barriers to make sure I stay on track. The other thing I love is the Pomodoro timer method. Working for 25 minutes, taking a five-minute break, working for 25 minutes – it’s how I write everything.

But the thing I keep coming back to is gentleness. How can we be gentle and not mean to ourselves through self-interruption? That’s often the hardest part. We’ll think, “I interrupted myself. I might as well just stop.” Nope, just get back on and keep moving.

Why do people treat their mindless scrolling like a personal failure, instead of remembering tech is engineered for distraction?

This is why I remind people to have grace toward themselves. This is all built to keep us hooked, tethered and in our phones. Big tech wants us to feel small and distracted.

With any addiction – food, sex, TV, phones, alcohol, drugs – there is this extreme “shoulding” toward ourselves: “I should be able to just put it down.” It feels like willpower should be enough. But all these things are hard to put down without community.

This March break, challenge yourself and ditch the phone

You write, “There are so many things vying for your attention –notifications, obligations, social media, the hum of urgency that modern life says is normal.” Tell me about the silence and spaciousness of a digital detox.

To me, tech is just noise. Silence is an opportunity. I can clarify, what am I actually listening to? What do I want to come through? Being informed about what’s happening in the world is a worthy effort. But sometimes it’s okay to go a day, to not know and lean into the silence of no phone, no news, no TV. For a day, an hour, tune out so you can drop into your own life.

Let’s turn to the good things we can reach for offline. Of all the “replacements” in your book – movement, hobbies, research, creativity, service and spiritual practice – which are people neglecting most badly now?

Movement and service. Movement is the first to go because many of us are sitting at a computer all day. But movement is what regulates the nervous system the most. With movement, other things come much easier.

Now that I have left a lot of tech behind, I’m more tapped in with my community. My girlfriend and I are not religious but there’s a Unitarian Universalist church in the town next to us. They have an amazing events page, mutual aid training, marches, protests and information on how to volunteer. It’s a great entry point to service and community.

More than ever, it’s time to get to know our neighbours. In my town – population 102 – my neighbours have very different politics than I do. I still find value in knowing them and being in community with them. I might need to call my neighbour across the street to tow me out of the snow. You never know what I’ll need, or what he’ll need.

Problematic smartphone use resembles a behavioural addiction, researchers say

What about creativity? Where’s that gone in the scroll?

Creativity and play are part of what we’ve lost in the scroll. But everyone still has access to creativity. It can be cooking, alone or with a loved one. Drawing, painting, sewing, knitting. Playing with your kids. These are great ways to regulate the nervous system. Even if you’re listening to a podcast and doing something with your hands, I’m not anti-multitasking.

I’m coming back to creativity that isn’t linked to my job. As an artist and writer, knitting is important to me as a hobby-slash-creative practice. It’s something I don’t sell, something I don’t have to tell anyone I did.

Screen free clubs are gaining traction; so are analog pursuits like collaging and listening parties. Are these hopeful signs, or a drop in the bucket?

I have moments thinking, why am I even talking to people about this? Nobody cares, everyone’s going to keep being on their phones. But I am also seeing more people divest from things that don’t serve them. We’re making decisions that put us more in line with our values.

This interview has been edited and condensed.