Just how distracted can one person get on a train from DC to New York? I present you with this small study.

But first, I should acknowledge that I’m the worst. I basically live on my laptop/iPad/iPhone. I constantly have music on, I play games on the subway, I read on my kindle, I draft work emails on my phone. I don’t have a problem admitting I have a problem. And there’s very little argument that would support the notion that I’m the only one.

But, I digress. What exactly does Tom Hanks have to do with all of this? Well, it’s no surprise that our boy Hanks is a man with fine tastes. He loves wine, his wife Rita Wilson (who is great in Runaway Bride by the way), and typewriters. Hanks released his iPad app Hanx Writer to the masses in August of this year, bringing his passion to the masses. But Hanks is a clever man, as we all knew. He understood that there are some modern luxuries we aren’t willing to give up.

No longer must you surrender modern luxuries, like the DELETE key, to enjoy the look, feel, and sound of good, old-fashioned word-processing.

What’s most interesting about this app is how quickly it skyrocketed to the top of the App Store. People are in fact yearning for simpler times. There’s something incredibly satisfying about hearing the keys of a typewriter clicking and that chime when it reaches the end of a line. But now you can have these features without losing your cherished delete button, or the ability to print or email your document.

This movement backwards, to a more focused style of work with fewer bells and whistles, is not being headed up by Hanks alone. Hemingwrite was also recently released, which is a physical machine that bills itself as a “distraction free writing composition device” that can sync with Evernote and Google Docs so you never lose your progress.

I wouldn’t call this movement a regression, but rather an adaptation. It can be hard to focus in our modern world. Sometimes, turning off the internet and focusing on your work, or not reading that email that just came in, can feel impossible. Getting things done can be complicated by the noise around us every day.

And so, back to the experiment. I wrote this post on an train that lasted 2 hours and 50 minutes. I finished approximately 5 minutes before the train got in to Penn. Once the train left DC, I logged my behavior throughout the ride. In addition to writing this post, I also:

Responded to 26 emails

Sent 17 text messages

Took a phone call (16:27 duration)

Googled where I’m going to drinks tonight

Read the Yelp reviews of the bar I’m going to tonight

Checked my bank account balance

Checked Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr (twice each)

Okay, I checked Instagram 3 times

Read 2 articles on Medium

Listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors on Spotify, twice

Maybe a move backwards, to a distraction-reducing work style, wouldn’t be so bad….