A few days ago, I wrote a product design guide and had to address a crucial difference: disruption vs. distraction. This difference matters more than most people realise. You should be able to run away from a distraction, but from disruption, not so much.

I wrote this:
“Disruption is a quality of the market and the potential to update expectations and reshape demand...”

Yes, it sounds pretentious, but that line stuck with me. So here I am, turning that throwaway into a full-blown rant to see if it holds up under heat.

Let’s go.

First, disruption is not a job title. It’s not a TED talk, a best-seller, or some founder with a saviour complex.
Disruption is a feature of a system like a relationship, economy, market or even the world order.

Disruption is what happens when a system can no longer hold itself together. The market gets brittle, pressure builds, expectations shift, and boom—the structure starts to give.

Disruption is like an avalanche. It doesn’t happen because someone’s shouting about it. It happens because the structure is compromised. I'm not a disruptor, I'm the idiot who shakes the tree at the right time.

Disruption doesn’t need your attention. Actually, most of the time, it happens when you’re not looking. But distraction? That feeds on attention. It dies without your eyeballs.

Distraction is planned. Flashy. Loud. Always on-brand. It’s got a marketing team, a social media calendar, and a pitch deck full of half-truths. It’s polished, tested, sponsored, and bloody everywhere.

That’s why we’re not buying the product anymore. We’re buying the hype. The founder’s swagger. The illusion that we’re getting in early on the next big thing. That’s how we ended up with Adam Neumann selling “elevated consciousness” in a glorified office rental. That’s how we got Theranos, Juicero, and whatever breathless garbage gets demoed at CES every January.

And we keep falling for it. We’re hooked on momentum. We hate stillness because it feels like failure. We can’t manage boredom anymore. We watch launches like football matches, then quietly return to our dopamine loops and scrolling habits, wishing we had more disposable income to buy our third iPad.

Sometimes, distraction shows up dressed like disruption. It makes noise, pulls headlines, and rakes in investment. Then, nothing. No behaviour changes. There is no new value, just a high followed by disappointment.

So why does this keep happening?
I believe it happens because we’ve built a machine that makes it happen. Distraction isn’t just common — it’s industrial. The most efficient infrastructure for this is Social media, infinite feeds, and algorithmic slot machines. Short clips on a loop, designed to flatten nuance and bend your brain just enough to keep you clicking.

It doesn’t just entertain. It rewires how we think, what we think about, and whether we can think. It doesn’t just distract; it disrupts critical thought itself.

We’ve built shrines for those who know how to sell this stuff—tech messiahs, hype merchants, and influencer founders who know how to pitch potential better than they deliver outcomes. We reward charisma, not competence. So when real disruption shows up, we miss it entirely; we are too busy watching the circus.

Take politics. America’s chaos machine gets labelled “disruption” when it’s clearly a distraction with nuclear consequences. While everyone reacts to tweets and press briefings, the change is happening quietly and permanently elsewhere.

In this case, real disruption is happening where no one’s looking. Supply chains are shifting. New alliances are forming. Energy policy is evolving under pressure from climate and war. Conflicts you’ve forgotten about are reshaping entire regions. Borders are being redrawn. Economies rebuilt. Generational futures decided.

Even closer to home, unmanaged screen time rewires your kid’s brain. That’s disruption. Quiet, creeping, profound. More impactful than your boss’s dramatic quarterly targets dressed up as “market shifts.”

These stories aren’t viral. They’re slow, complex, and uncomfortable. But they move the ground beneath us. That’s where the real stuff happens. Not in the spotlight.

Before I let you go, there's one more thing: distraction is important because the context makes it capable of disruption. It is a byproduct of repeated actions rewarded by dopamine or any other addictive incentive.

I don’t have a fix. I’m not here to give answers. I’m just calling out a pattern and trying to signal the difference between distraction and disruption.

Have an amazing Sunday morning.