Demand and supply of distraction

I'm wondering if cutting supplies of distraction actually makes you less distracted, or just leaves you craving for more.

Once again (I’ve lost count how many times I’ve done this in life now), last Friday, I logged out of Twitter. I had found that I was spending way too much time on the site, especially for someone who is just starting to build his own company (I’m blogging about my startup journey here).

And then, on Saturday, I found myself spending a long time on Reddit instead. That I had taken out one source of stimulus hadn’t meant that I would be less distracted. What it meant was that I found a new source of distraction (now I’m rationalising my twitter break by saying it’s about what I consumed there, rather than the time I spent consuming that).

The supply of distraction had been reduced (one source had been cut), but the demand hadn’t.

While I had decided to take a break from this blog (so that I don’t “overfit ADHD” into all parts of my life), I thought this is interesting enough to take a break from the break.

For an economic transaction to happen, you need both demand and supply. For example, I might want a particular book, and might be willing to pay $10 in cash for it. To be able to actually buy that book, I need someone how is willing to give me that book for $10 (or less) in cash. You need both demand and supply for a deal to happen. This is trivial.

It is similar with distraction. One of the strategies that a lot of people with ADHD (and similar neurodivergences) follow in order to focus more is to cut sources of stimulus. You get off social media. You quit drinking alcohol. You reduce caffeine consumption. And so on.

The rationale here is that because less distraction is available now, the “clearing price of getting distracted” has gone up. And as a consequence, the total “quantity transacted” goes down.

I asked ChatGPT to illustrate this. After two attempts I got this:

Source: ChatGPT

Now I’m myself confused about whether what ChatGPT has done (shifting the supply curve here) is correct, or if just the quantity supplied has changed. But this illustrates well.

Notice how with the reduction in supply, overall “transacted quantity” of distraction has gone down, and it comes at a higher price (more effort to distract myself). Hence by cutting distractions like twitter, I distract myself less.

While this makes sense from an Econ101 perspective, in practice this somehow doesn’t “feel right”. The problem is that the main purpose served by distraction is to serve as a source of stimulus, and if you are getting distracted less, you need to find that stimulation from somewhere. Like in the above graph, those 10 units of stimulus (assuming stimulus is same as distraction, if we’ve chosen appropriate units) need to come from somewhere.

One source, of course, is medication such as methylphenidate (which I’ve been off ever since I quit my last job). Another source is caffeine (haven’t increased consumption to go with the stoppage of methylphenidate). I don’t want to indulge in other “substances”. So I’m wondering - unless there is something organic, does this cutting of stimulus work at all?

Or is it simply that the demand curve for stimulus is far less elastic than what I’ve drawn here? I’m not able to get ChatGPT to draw an alternate, but if the demand curve for distraction were to be near-vertical, then the cutting of sources of supply (such as Twitter or medication) will not actually change the amount I’m actually distracted. All it will do is to make the distraction more costly!! I’ll spend more of my brain power for the same distraction.

I wonder what the truth is. Or if I’m confusing myself by conflating stimulus and distraction. How has YOUR experience been in terms of cutting out sources of distraction?

PS: Is my econ reasoning right? Been a while since I did such “fundamental” stuff.