We do stuff. But its left incomplete. Like the task you decided to do but didn't do it. Or talking to your friends in chat but not getting a reply. Watching a show ending in cliffhanger. Open loops are stuff which gets stuck in your brain even though we should be relaxing. Or focusing on some other task.
Avoiding open loops dramatically improves our focus retention. However the process involves changing habit and takes month to take notice. Which is why its hard.
The first revolutionary printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440. Bible was the first book which was mass produced from this machine. This started the printing revolution. In 4 centuries European book output rose from few millions to one billion copies. Its quite wrong to say this was distraction since it led rise to literacy rate. However if comic books were mass produced and spread like this then it would have been a different case.
TV got popular in 20th century totally changing how humans receive information & entertainment. Earlier it was luxury but due to nature of capatalism it soon became cheaper. Compared to reading books TV is much more engaging. Therefore as TV got popular books got unpopular among the people. This is the first instance in history of mankind where attention span reduced drastically in years.
Given the amount of content in internet we have close to infinite choices to choose from. So there is a trade off, what to watch given the choices. If we has a specific movie to watch they will watch only that. Consideration has been given already. But if we don't have anything specific in mind they need to choose from it. Sometimes we try to filter based on our own choices. Like mystery, cartoon, romance. since even in that we don't have anything particular we go with the info given to us. The thumbnail, trailer, poster, description, reviews. Browsing a movie in netflix we give more time to consider compared to lets say watching a reel.
This is closely related to idea of focus. Only to things we give attention to, we can focus on. But what things we give attention doesn't mean we give our focus always. Its a slippery concept. Our attention span has reduced drastically because even with slight boredom or empty thoughts we have choices to keep something on brain. When we give attention to something we remember it. And companies use that attention to display their products or services. So that we remember them. Attention in today's world is treated like a commodity. Its limited therefore valuable.
Merchants whose main business is to farm people's attention and sell it to bidders. The first attention merchant came around 200 years back. A young chap called Benjamin noticed that newspapers are read by only elites & its quite costly. So he started a new company, sold newspaper in loss so that more people buy it. And then sold advertisement space to merchants. The first attention merchant. In today's world most tech consumer based companies tend towards attention merchant. Even while operating in loss. Benjamin's method of operating a bussiness still lives.