Likewise, listening to music might be considered a distraction, but Fife's students reported “using music to increase their enjoyment and energy for the task of writing.

Jane Fife (2017) examined what her writing students said about distractions in class discussions, written reflections, and survey responses, and she found that many of them employed distractions in order to motivate and manage their composing activity. For example, she discovered that some students use procrastination to generate “time pressure in order to start writing and maintain focus.”

We live in an age of perpetual distraction, and our collective ability to concentrate and work productively is under constant threat from emerging technologies—or so many believe.