toward the end of the book (234), the Friends of Attention note that "the work of actually distinguishing attention from distraction proves philosophically tricky. After all, when I accuse you of being 'distracted,' what am I really saying, if not 'You seem to be paying attention to something other than what I'd like you to focus on?' Which is to say, 'distraction' ends up looking a lot like unauthorized attention--or, to put it another way, attention that is not in line with the expectations of whoever's in charge."
they note that it is a "conundrum" though also say that the distinction between attention and distraction is not purely a matter of "relations of power" or of "sociology"
though they do reaffirm (235) that "distraction" has its own "attentional valences":
"Indeed, one quite brilliant commentator on the history of attention, Paul North, has gone so far as to argue that the deepest and purest forms of attention actually hide behind the disguise of so-called distraction: It is precisely those moment in which we are most completely 'checked out' of the expected attentional patterns and objects--when we are so immersed in a daydream or reverie that, when called to the matter at hand, we truly cannot even recall where we were or how we got there--that the most extraordinary experiences of human attention are achieved"
a "paradoxical provocation," possibly resulting from the fact that "our language for talking about our attentional lives is not especially well-developed [and] has been systematically distorted by a century of narrowing attention-discourse"