In these modern times everyone is affected by all kinds of distractions. Sometimes it feels like you cannot get people to pay attention even for few minutes. The average attention span of an American for example is in seconds. Companies, politicians and others have recognized this and take advantage of it. People are distracted by smartphones, tablets, tv, instant messages, emails, alerts, facebook, tik-tok and zillion others.

According to a recent article at the BBC even our ancestors were affected by distractions.Some went to extreme measures to avoid them and focus on the task at hand. The below infographic shows some interesting ways that they used to deal with distractions:

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Source: How did our ancestors avoid distractions?, The BBC