Lee Rainie offers insights to Wired on distraction-free use of technology

The director of Elon's Imagining the Digital Future Center talked with Wired about the appeal of a 'focus-friendly table.'

People who use tech-connected tools to accomplish creative pursuits can often find themselves distracted by the persistent dings of notifications or the nagging urge to check inboxes for new emails.

Lee Rainie, director of The Imagining the Digital Future Center

Overcoming those distractions is part of the appeal of a new “focus-friendly tablet” being reviewed by Wired, with reporter Julian Chokkattu talking with Lee Rainie, director of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center, about why some may seek out disconnected tech.

“There are certainly tons of signals from users themselves as well as from the marketplace that people do want times in their lives when they are distraction-free,” Rainie told Wired. “They want a tactile experience, an emotional experience, a social experience; the natural experience of just being in a place doing things that are not going to be interrupted. When people are in flow, they are enormously happy.”

Read the full article to learn more.

Rainie has spent more than two decades leading teams that report on the social, political and economic impact of technology revolutions including the internet/broadband revolution, the mobile connectivity revolution, the social media revolution, and the artificial intelligence revolution. Rainie joined Elon in 2023 as director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center after 24 years spent directing Pew Research Center’s efforts to study the internet and technology.