+Distracting Focus

Learning in a classroom setting is difficult for some people because they can’t focus well. I personally can’t focus without music. I have to have at least one headphone in at all times in order to learn anything in class. Today my headphones broke and I couldn’t focus at all, I think I failed the whole day. My friends told me some of their focusing habits; One of my friends has to be chewing gum, another has to bite her nails, others have to have complete silence and no music, some have to have their phones on their desks at all times. Why is it that we need a small distraction to keep our minds on track? Our attention on certain subjects aren’t interesting sometimes, so in order to not be completely bored with the topic and begin snoozing away in the middle of world history class, we distract our minds slightly with a small amount of entertainment. The definition of focus is "a central point, as of attraction, attention, or activity." Even though not all our attention is on one topic it is still the central thing that has our attention. The little things we do to distract ourselves can actually help direct our attention to focusing on the topic at hand.