> Interestingly, when I travel, my relationship with browsing changes. The feeling of "magnetic attention" (present even right now) is entirely absent and I lose interest after 5 minutes, max.

Oh wow, interesting that you mention it because I experience the same. Can and do spend hours a day looking at random stuff on various forums / youtube / hn. But once I'm out traveling the need disappears and it just doesn't seem to grip as much anymore.

I believe the almost obsessive browsing is some kind of escape or avoidance mechanism. An escape from being somewhere doing something that you don't want to be doing. It is an easy of taking the mind of whatever is going on in reality. Not that it helps much.