Compulsive Multitasking as Attention-Fragmentation Wrong Attractor: The Parallel-Processing Architecture, Depth-Avoidance Basin, and the Return to Calibrated Focused Presence

We develop a dynamical-systems account of compulsive multitasking as a wrong attractor in the attentional state-space of cognitive agents. Using the displacement framework introduced in earlier Phronesis Issues papers, we define the ground state S^0 as calibrated focused presence—the condition of engaging with one task at a time with full attentional resources, tolerating the productive discomfort that depth requires, and thereby enabling the quality of cognitive output that only sustained single-pointed engagement makes possible.

Against this ground state, we characterize the wrong attractor W as habitual attention fragmentation across simultaneously maintained task streams—a pattern driven not by genuine efficiency considerations but by the avoidance of depth's demands. We introduce the displacement cost function D() measuring deviation from S^0, and the accumulated displacement = D()\, dt that tracks the chronic entrenchment of the fragmented-attention pattern.

We identify four structural components of the wrong-attractor architecture: the depth-avoidance trigger, the attention-switching mechanism, the productivity illusion, and progressive focus-capacity degradation. Nine formal propositions (P1–P9) characterize the basin geometry, displacement dynamics, degradation trajectory, and return conditions. We conclude by describing the return path from W to S^0: the deliberate single-tasking practice, the focus restoration arc from distress through tolerance to absorption and flow, and the structural protection of attention as a finite and depletable resource.