What pulls at us?

What pulls at us?

A survey about the everyday things that tug at us, tempt us, and bend the space around us.

October, 2026 • By Sam McNerney

I’ve noticed two very different things pulling at me at night.

One is my phone. Sometimes I’ll be sitting on the couch and feel this little urge to pick it up and check something—anything. I don’t like that urge. I wish the phone had less pull on me.

The other is running. I’ll occasionally get the urge to go for a run, and that creates its own kind of conflict: part of me wants to go, while another part doesn’t.

On the surface, these seem like two versions of the same problem: desire colliding with resistance. But they’re not the same. One is a pull I wish were weaker. The other is a pull I wish were stronger.

Last week, I got curious about this tension and fielded a survey. I didn't start with a theory, just a hunch that the difference between the phone and the run mattered.

I picked 14 things and built a plotting interface in the style of a solar system to measure how hard each one pulls on people. “You” is at the center. The stronger the pull, the tighter the orbit.

I also built a slider that measures whether people wished each item in their orbit pulled at them more, less, or about the same.

Before I show you the results of the survey (n=144), try it yourself. Put the things with the strongest pull closest to the center. If something doesn't really pull at you at all, drop it beyond the outer ring.

Then, once you've placed everything, there's the second question: for each thing inside your orbit, do you wish it pulled at you more, less, or about the same?

Place 14 items in your orbit

Drag each item onto the orbital plane. Closer means stronger pull. Once you’ve placed them, they’ll start moving.

You

I didn't pick the 14 items at random. When people talk about things pulling at them, they usually mean temptations, like the urge to reach for your phone. Coming up with examples of those was easy: YouTube, Nutella, the comments section. Anyone can list things they want and wish they didn't.

I also wanted things that pull at people that aren’t “temptations,” like the urge to go for a run. Those were harder to come up with because we have a word for a pull we wish were weaker (temptation), but not for one we wish were stronger. The closest word might be aspiration, but nobody says "I felt an aspiration to go running." We say "I wish I wanted to run."

Finally, I included a few that could go either way. A karaoke mic is a thrill for some people and a nightmare for others, and even the people who dread it might hear a small voice telling them to grab it anyway.

A baby someone offers to let you hold might make you melt or make you panic, and the people who panic might feel like they're supposed to want it.

I put the final 14 into the survey and recruited 144 people to do what you just did.

Here's what I found.

What pulled hardest?

Each gray dot is one placement from one respondent. Select an item to highlight its placements. Items are ranked by average distance from “You,” with the closest at the top.

# Item Avg.

For everything people kept inside their orbit, I asked whether they wished it pulled more, less, or about the same.

Then I put the two questions together: how strongly each thing pulled, and whether people wished that pull were stronger or weaker.

Bad temptations

Your phone beside you in bed pulled harder than anything else on the list, and it’s also the one people most wish pulled less.

Good temptations

Only three items landed here, but they’re strong: exercise pulls about as hard as the comments section, and a great book comes close to YouTube.

Small vices

Nutella, a second drink, cannabis, and Zillow all pull weakly, and people wish they pulled only a little less. When a pull is weak, people don’t seem to care much which way it goes.

Shoulds

The karaoke mic was the only one that landed here: a weak pull people wished were stronger. So the small voice telling us to grab it is real, but faint.

Last year, I worked on a project for Duolingo. We were trying to understand why people lapsed and use what we learned to shape new marketing. I fielded a survey with hundreds of language learners, including current and former Duolingo users.

I wish I’d had the solar system interface back then. I would have asked lapsed users “Do you wish learning a language pulled at you harder?” That might have separated people who were truly done from people who still wanted to learn, but weren’t feeling enough pull to come back.

At the time, we treated lapsed users as people who needed to be convinced. But many of them were probably already trying to convince themselves, and if someone wishes they wanted to learn, a reminder of how long it's been since they practiced just makes them feel guilty.

There's something strange about wishing you wanted something. The wish has its own pull. Wishing you wanted to run means running is in your orbit, but it’s circling a second center of gravity: another version of you that would go.

My survey measured what pulls at you, and then what pulls at the other you. Neither one tells the whole story. Maybe the space between them does.