Do you feel as though you struggle to pay attention and think deeply? This is a problem I have personally faced, so over winter break, I decided to seek out a solution. This is when I came across the insightful, best-selling book, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again.” “Stolen Focus,” written by researcher, journalist, and author Johann Hari, outlines various attention and focus-depriving factors that are currently present in society and affecting each one of us. This book was such a great read that I felt it necessary to recommend it to everyone, especially students my age.
Although my expectation for this book was for it to tear apart technology and social media and rant on how it rots our brains, Hari provided much more than that. He speaks with countless scientists, researchers, spokespeople, inventors, and previous Silicon Valley employees to gain further evidence, research, and insights on the topics he covers. Hari touches on topics including the rising lack of sleep, low reading levels, poor diets, overwhelming work schedules, and the deprivation of what he refers to as “flow-states” and “mind-wandering.”
This excerpt from the final section of the book beautifully unifies the main collective ideas covered by Hari: “Your ability to develop deep focus is, I have come to believe, like a plant. To grow and flourish to its full potential, your focus needs certain things to be present: play for children and flow states for adults, to read books, to discover meaningful activities that you want to focus on, to have space to let your mind wander so you can make sense of your life, to exercise, to sleep properly, to eat nutritious food that make it possible for you to develop a healthy brain and to have a sense of safety. And there are certain things you need to protect your attention from because they will sicken or stunt it: too much speed, too much switching [between tasks], too many stimuli, intrusive technology designed to hack and hook you, stress, exhaustion, processed food pumped with dyes that amp you up [and] polluted air.”
This book is quite captivating, even from the first few chapters. I also felt it was fairly simple to read, as Hari’s writing style is quite straightforward and informative. He packages a lot of intriguing information into the book’s 283 pages. In fact, I think I had about fifteen pages worth of underlined sentences and paragraphs!
Adam Grant, an American author, professor, and scientist encourages people to read Hari’s book, stating “Hari [has] written the book the world needs to win the war on distraction.” If you are looking for a new book to add to your reading list for 2025 or want to gain some practical knowledge about your attention and ability to focus, I think “Stolen Focus” is a great option and offers a lot of critical thoughts regarding the world’s current attention and focus deprivation epidemic.
