A group out of UBC says distraction blocking apps are often marketed at neurodiverse people, but little is known about how they are actually used.
Kevin Chow and Marvel Hariadi were among the authors of a study that looked into the issue. They spoke with People First Radio about digital well being tools and inclusivity.
“When you hop on the App Store and you just search up distraction blocker or focus apps, you see a ton of these apps that are marketed towards people who have ADHD or who are neurodivergent in a sense,” said Chow. “But we noticed that there wasn’t a lot of literature that actually looked at this more specifically.”
Chow says one key takeaway from the research is that many apps treat focus in a very rigid way.
“We found that focus apps kind of are actually failing neurodivergent minds,” he said. “These apps are built assuming that focus is sort of like this faucet that you can just turn on and off.”
Chow said the research also found that many neurodivergent people had developed rituals and techniques in synergy with their distraction blocking apps. He said some people viewed the apps as a crutch, while others viewed them as a scaffold.
“I think it really comes down to this idea of viewing our ability to focus as this sort of muscle. And I think for neurodivergent folks, this idea can be a little bit challenging because I think they’ve often been told by society…their focus muscle might be different from someone else,” he said.
“Viewing these apps as more of this sort of scaffold that can help you get there or help you when you need it at certain times, that can lead to, I think, a healthier outlook on these apps overall and less of this sort of crutch-like framing of, ‘Oh, do I need to have this app installed all my life?'”
The study interviewed people with ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and or autism spectrum disorder. Hariadi would like to see systems redesigned to uphold the strengths of neurodivergent people.
“A lot of people with this trifecta of conditions often have more creative thinking and nonlinear workflows, so they’re really good with multitasking… the way our tech works and the way our productivity culture works is that we are forced to sort of focus on being good at one or a few things at a time ”
Chow echoed the idea that more apps could be designed from a strengths based framing rather than a deficit one.
“I think all of us have had this experience of kind of going on this rabbit hole and just really, you know, hours fly by, and that can actually be a really productive time for people who have ADHD. But these apps assume that you need to work in these twenty-five minute blocks. And so you might work in twenty-five minutes, and then the time’s up, and then suddenly for someone who has ADHD, they’re out of their flow before they even got into it,” he said.
“I think the takeaway for us really is that if a focus app isn’t working, it doesn’t mean you are the problem. We need to design apps that support all sorts of diverse ways of working, not just assume that there’s one right way.”
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