"So much for their last, desperate attempt, which as you see, turns out to have been a mere distraction."

A hospital scene of a wounded child moves us in a way that makes concern for the future seem a mere distraction.

He was their target; I was nobody, a mere distraction.

But after a while these things seem mere distractions in what is essentially a painful story.

What she had taken for mere distraction now began to concern her.

Madam, this is a mere distraction; You turn the good we offer into envy.

All of which was a mere distraction, to keep my mind off Peter.

Roughly a third of the manual will be mere distraction for any given owner.

In both cases, the comic tends to act as a mere distraction from the main activity of drinking or dancing.

The concern was not limited to mere distraction or unpleasantness.