Stolen Focus

Johann Hari is a British journalist and author. In Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again (2022) he travels around interviewing researchers to work out why our attention appears to be weakening.

What the book covers

• Attention is under pressure from outside. The central thesis is that our focus is not merely slipping, but being taken from us – by services and systems that make money from our inability to stop looking at them.
• The causes are connected. Hari points to several things at once: how the technology is designed, the pace of the working day, too little sleep, diet, stress, air pollution and too little free play for children.
• Individual advice is not enough. His argument is that the problem is collective, and therefore takes more than app blockers and self-discipline.
• He tries it himself. The book is built as a journey, including three months without internet, and alternates between reportage and research interviews.

Worth knowing

This is journalism, not an academic work – its strength is that it assembles a large picture and is easy to read. Several of the claims are disputed, and some researchers have argued that the book takes its conclusions further than the research supports. Read it as a thought-provoking way into the subject, not as the final word.