Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again Paperback – January 24, 2023

This is not the book I was expected. It was far more valuable. I bought it in hopes of gaining a better understanding of some displeasing personal habits I've newly developed (which it has), but more importantly, it's helped me gain a deeper understanding as to why and how our world has arrived at our current, alarming circumstance. Unlike self-help books that offer over-simplistic, doomed-to-fail hacks to regain one's focus, STOLEN FOCUS takes a deep dive into the topic, exploring the vast range of human functions and joys dependent on our capacity to focus, how a dearth of it (within ourselves and society at large) impacts our lives, plus, how and why our capacity to focus has diminished over time. Only when we understand the how and why, can we begin to tackle the question: what must we do to restore it? Granted, the author does not offer fast and easy resolutions, primarily because there are none. However, knowledge is power, and even though he tackles the subject with the gravity it deserves, he presents this wake-up call with wisdom, compassion and caring. To boot, it's a riveting page-turner and hauntingly prescient. Published back in 2022, the book foretells so much of what has since happened to our society. However, that's not to suggest it ends on a negative note. Throughout the book,the author uses practical solutions from history to show how current problems may be overcome. As such, I finished the book with greater incentive to protect my focus from the many who aim to steal it, and it's working. 3 months later, I find myself way less distractable and feeling oddly empowered. Seeing the world from a clearer perspective doesn't fix the myriad problems around us, but it makes it easier to determine where we might best focus our energies and where we best not. This makes an excellent companion piece to Charles Duhigg's THE POWER OF HABIT (published in 2012 but even more resonant now) and Kate Murphy's YOU'RE NOT LISTENING.I wish everybody would read these 3 books (oh, and also the 2008 classic Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.") if these were required reading for everybody in the world, the world would be a much happier, pleasanter place.

The first six chapters of this book are really, really good. They address the issues (primarily technology) that are affecting our ability to focus, think creatively, and achieve flow. I would recommend the book just for those chapters. However, in the later half of the book, the author starts to get prescriptive, and that is where I fundamentally disagree and don't follow his logic.Basically, his premise in second half of the book is that we as individuals are helpless victims of technology that is engineered to control us and that the only potential solutions are institutional ones. While some of the solutions may be in the form of new regulations, etc., I think it could have been a much better book if the author had acknowledged that there is a lot that people can do in their own lives and homes to negate the forces of technology. We aren't just helpless victims.

This is a gargantuan book--and not because of its size (which I'm sure the publisher limited and 30% of it is end notes). It's massive in the scope of what it attempts: to explain the degredation of our ability to focus.Do you feel it? I sure do. It predates COVID-19, but like many things, the pandemic just shoved us forward, abruptly, on a path we were already headed down.It should not surprise you that there's no single factor, but a multitutde, each with their own pernicious effect. Hari's effort here is so broad that many times I would think "hold up, I want an entire book about THIS"--and I'm sure that was a struggle for him, giving cursory mention to whole swaths of scientific research on a certain aspect. Hari is nothing if not thorough, by nature. But the scope of this necessitated that, and those end notes are the breadcrumb trails, should you choose to follow them.The most important part about this book, in my opinion, is the framework he provides: our focus has been *stolen* and there's no easy fix. It is a collective problem with massive individual impact. He's careful to point out that there are *many* things an individual can do to make it better (or worse)--and you should absolutely attempt those things--but those things are accessible primarily to the privileged. And it's an insult to pretend otherwise. Worse, intentional efforts are made (by corporations or other parties who benefit) to blame individuals for the very problems the corporations created (and continue to profit from). Victim-blaming is real, and culturally, we're well-primed to blame the individual for everything--from blaming women who can't carry an endless unpaid care-labor burden for their difficulty in focusing to blaming kids with stressful lives for not being able to focus in a testing-obsessed educational system.The pandemic shone a spotlight (a FOCUS) on the fact that the system doesn't work for most people, hasn't worked for some time, and is actively getting worse.We were all collectively suffering, and some of us are starting to realize this is not an *individual* problem.In some ways, this is a depressing, challenging book. There are no easy answers--just a whole bunch of really difficult ones. But it's a terribly important book. Because it gives a framework (a FOCUS) to the problem, which is a vital first step. We'll need to work collectively to solve this problem of focus--just like the climate crisis, just like the erosion of democracy--and I don't know if we will. We're *capable* of it, that's certain. But I don't know if we'll make that choice.I'll leave you with a couple quotes from Hari, to get a flavor of what he's attempting, but if it's not clear: I think everyone *needs* to read this book. Addressing this problem is foundational to fixing *every* problem."Solving big problems requires the sustained focus of many people over many years. Democracy requires the ability of a population to pay attention long enough to identify real problems, distinguish them from fantasies, come up with solutions, and hold their leaders accountable if they fail to deliver them.""Imagine that one day you are attacked by a bear. You will stop paying attention to your normal concerns—what you’re going to eat tonight, or how you will pay the rent. You become vigilant. Your attention flips to scanning for unexpected dangers all around you. For days and weeks afterward, you will find it harder to focus on more everyday concerns. This isn’t limited to bears. These sites make you feel that you are in an environment full of anger and hostility, so you become more vigilant—a situation where more of your attention shifts to searching for dangers, and less and less is available for slower forms of focus like reading a book or playing with your kids."

There are countless ways we are dumbed-down. “Stolen Focus” outlines the manipulation tactics that seek to eliminate free thinking because such people are easier to control. A thorough and friendly manner make reading it educational and fun.If you’ve ever noticed how some sales people prefer customers that are impulsive and not concerned about making responsible decisions, then this book is for you. In a world where many have no issue using other people’s effort and energy to further their personal agenda, you’d do well to put all your decisions in your hands. This book will show you how to build that skill-set. The sooner you do it, the better.