Stolen Focus - Johann Hari

Stolen Focus

By Johann Hari

  • Release Date: 2022-01-25
  • Genre: Social Science
Score: 4
4
From 132 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening—and how to get our attention back.

“The book the world needs in order to win the war on distraction.”—Adam Grant, author of Think Again

“Read this book to save your mind.”—Susan Cain, author of Quiet

 
WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Post, Mashable, Mindful

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.
 
We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers’ productivity.
 
Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus—as individuals, and as a society—if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.

Reviews

  • Highly Recommend

    5
    By cojones03
    Very insightful into the factors in our society that work against our focus and our ability to be productive, both factors that are obvious and others that are not so obvious. This is a very much needed topic that needs a lot more attention.
  • Eye Opening

    5
    By @cristaladriana__
    I was able to engage fully with this book because I can relate to so many of the topics being discussed and how we are collectively being affected. Thank you for bringing awareness !
  • EVERY person needs to read this

    5
    By Bjmedd
    Every parent, every person who uses social media, every person who has wondered why they can’t focus like they used to. This book is just the beginning. Take back your time. Take back your focus. Take back your life.
  • Absolutely profound!

    5
    By TeamTemsic
    This book is so illuminating. We’re all missing out on our lives, and more importantly, our kids lives!!! and we don’t even know it. A must read for anyone who wants to take back control of their life!

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