Some research already points to this being the case. iirc, they tracked the subjects from childhood to adulthood and the results showed that self-discipline was the prime differentiating factor displayed by successful subjects (no citation, sorry).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_gratification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
It's not mentioned in those articles, but one of the differences in those who didn't eat the marshmallow was that they used coping strategies to distract themselves. Things like singing to themselves, looking around the room, or drumming on the table. I think I recall a follow-up experiment that's not mentioned in those articles where they taught these coping strategies to a group of children then ran the experiment and, sure enough, far more of them were able to resist eating the marshmallow than in the control group.
The follow-up experiments you mention, where the coping strategies are taught, sound extremely interesting. Hopefully us info-addicts are not already too old to develop such "effective attentional control systems."
I installed focus.py this weekend (after seeing it here on HN), and am looking forward to some productivity gains. It was months ago that I read "Self-discipline in 10 days" (probably also on an HN recommendation). The key take-away (which I keep reminding myself) was that self-discipline is a skill that is learned and practiced, a muscle which is strengthened through exercise.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/02/19/just-let-th...