Call it a Maslow’s Hierarchy for the digital age: David McCandless’s Hierarchy of Digital Distractions breaks down what trumps what in the new universe of always-on communication.
Entries at the top of the pyramid win your attention over the lower levels of the hierarchy when they come in. Note that landline still has a place here but is thoroughly trumped by anything coming in on your iPhone. It also has to compete with the large vertical range of Twitter, and is ultimately beaten out by retweets and tweets from hot strangers.
Facebook
makes a surprisingly low showing, occupying only the lowest two levels of the hierarchy and topping out at a notification of a cool party. Zombie flagellation, however, rightly beats out any plain old invite.
Email has about the same vertical reach as Twitter
but descends even lower into the pyramid for anything “work-related.” A message from a romantic partner narrowly beats out emails “linking to video of kittens frolicking” which, depending on the day, we imagine might flip-flop.
At the very top of the pyramid is the ultimate arbiter of them all: your significant other closing the laptop lid on your fingers. At the very bottom? Any kind of actual work.
We think Mr. McCandless has managed to peg it all quite well here. My only quibble is that “new voicemail” shows up so high on the list — flagellating zombies is objectively more interesting. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have emails linking to funny cat videos to attend to.
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