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I thought of myself as a fragile person until I read Stolen Focus. I am constantly overwhelmed, feeling pummeled by regular life! Johann Hari talked through the design of social media, our economy, hustle culture, diet and lifestyle: all of which has evolved to thrive by overstimulating and vying for our attention. 5 ⭐️ 🎧 it was especially timely to listen to as I raise two young kids in this demanding digital age.

A pick for me. I appreciate the author reading the research so I don‘t have to. He may not have been super objective but honestly I don‘t mind. I wasn‘t looking for scientific objectivity. In this book and his book Lost Connections he talks a lot about collective energy and human connection. We aren‘t all scientists and researchers. Some of us need the anectdata to get our thoughts rolling. I‘m glad this book crossed my path via @AvidReader25

@AvidReader25 posted a review of this one months ago. I think it‘s time for me to dive in.

I don‘t understand the hype surrounding this book. It‘s simply a repackaging of already well-studied areas, with added political bias and unsubstantiated and/or highly subjective statistics, and figures quoted with no context (because the context wouldn‘t fit the narrative).

There are potentially some important questions within this book, but it‘s buried in too much subjectivity and the author‘s own self-importance. ⬇️

There's a lot to process here, but a major take away point is the combined damage of technology dependency, lack of sleep & good nutrition, and almost nonexistent freedom during childhood that is leading us down a dangerous path. We are becoming so stressed that our default mode is to zone out even further.

“We live in a culture that is constantly amping us up with stress & stimulation.”

“To pay attention in normal ways, you need to feel safe.”

Trying to read a book on focus in a coffeeshop that currently has live entertainment 😂

My January pick held out to be the top dog of 2023! I constantly think back on that book and will be reading it again in the near future. What was everyone else‘s favorite from last year?🙂

This book wins my top spot for March because I learned a lot from it & I liked the audiobook narration. I didn‘t agree with everything Hari presented, but the information is useful in my clinical practice.
I like picking a favorite each month because not all of them will be in my yearly top ten but are still great.
#12booksof2023 @Andrew65

Love this author from chasing the scream. This one is just as interesting, with a bit more autobiographical perspective. Will def make you rethink why you can't read or focus on TV anymore.

Reasons why attention spans and the ability to focus are declining on an individual and social level.

Well-argued and convincing book about an important problem. It's not just that I'm getting older. There are social factors similar to those why the quality of a lot of people's diet in developed countries is declining. It deserves all the stars.

#coffeeandabook

Very conscious as I read this over my lunchtime Starbucks how often I stop to look at my phone or watch other customers

I'm conflicted. A privileged middle aged white man with no kids/spouse/external responsibilities escapes to a Cap Cod town w/o a smartphone or internet access to reset his focus. Then he gets to resonating facts and anecdotes as he makes it clear that this is a systemic issue, not one of individual failing. He ends with the admission that he doesn't have it figured out; there is no "true path", no self help prescription for what we're up against.

This got 4.25 on Goodreads, and it‘s a breezy read, but I didn‘t learn much I didn‘t already know, and I wish Hari had spent more time on neuroscience. He tries to tackle too much, and ultimately (and ironically) I‘d say this lacked focus 😂

Love this author from chasing the scream. This one is just as interesting, with a bit more autobiographical perspective. Will def make you rethink why you can't read or focus on TV anymore.

This was a really interesting look at the effect of technology and social media on our ability to focus. It explains why it is harder to pay attention and how to enact small changes in your and (more importantly) children's lives to mitigate this, but is honest about how the only real change is through larger cultural movements to shift the actions of big tech companies since they are purposely targeting our attentions for profit.

This book had me turning off notification permissions for phone apps somewhere around chapter 3. It's a thought-provoking examination of our collective decline in attention span. It did a good job at highlighting multiple factors that affect our ability to focus while also pointing out that some of this is not settled science and there are some subjects about which experts disagree. 4.5⭐️ I look forward to checking my next screen time report!

Strategically placed for my adult son to find, he moved it to my adult daughter‘s room. Like a mom still momming, I nag both, “It won‘t take you more than four hours to read this.” 😒

Life changing. Honestly, this book explains so much I have had a vague sense of about life in the the 21st century.

What's the rush?
A little something I like to remember myself on days that aren't great.
PS - also started this book about which I've read amazing reviews.

Once I got past the author traveling so he can spends some months focusing, I really loved this book. It‘s full of so much important information on the ways our attention is being purposefully and adeptly manipulated. This really should be required reading…for parents, for educators, for politicians, for anyone who‘s scrolled through Facebook today, and for anyone who‘s tired of not being able to focus on simple things that bring joy. A must read.

Nonsense like this is why Litsy is my preferred social media ❤️

Have you watched this on Netflix?! It‘s a must watch, especially if you find yourself wasting time on FB and Instagram. 🙋‍♀️ Really informative and infuriating…

(2022) Personal confession: I have long had challenges managing my attention, but the last few years have been increasingly difficult. So a top takeaway for me is that almost *everybody* is having attention problems. (Hello, company. My name is misery. Damn, I'm glad to meet you.) Hari suggests ways to improve things on a personal level but argues persuasively that structural solutions are also needed. Comforting, worrisome, and enlightening

Wow this book had me cruising through the pages. Covering multiple areas of why we as a society feel like we are losing our ability to focus. From social media to lack of sleep to possible misdiagnosis of ADHD. A must read!

This is disheartening 😰

This book gave me a lot to think about. I've been trying to be more conscious about using screens for a few years now. I've listen to this book on audio (Johann Hari is great narrator) first and then read it on ebook to give myself more time to process everything. It was a very important read for me. I hope it will get translated so I could gift this book to friends and family.

Litsy Awards nominations are open. I didn't read much from this year, but I nominated where I could. Check out @LibrarianRyan for the original post and link!

This book will make you want to stop using social media or at least reduce your usage. The depths these platforms go to get you hooked is mind boggling. Focus and attention are on the decline in society and this is not surprising how easily distracted we are with our devices. One of my favorite chapters was the one on sustained reading which I think will resonate with all of us being readers. A great book which I haven‘t stopped thinking about!

An excellent book! This is not a self-help book. In fact, the "how to" section is pretty minimal; but that is because the true, laying how-to involves significant societal change. There is a lot of good information here, though. It seems like it's jumping around from nutrition to silicone valley to pollution, but that's because it is all connected. Highly recommended!

Empathy makes progress possible, and every time you widen human empathy, you open the universe a little more.

Hari covers so much ground here—all of it a necessary look at our collective declining attention span. I listened on audio (great author narration) and immediately bought the ebook to revisit specific ideas. While there are plenty of tips for individuals (including our kids), Hari also challenges us to reject encroaching surveillance capitalism.

Full review https://www.TheBibliophage.com
#thebibliophage2022 #nonfiction2022 #quietormeditative

Excellent. Johann Hari is a great communicator & this book synthesises many ideas that we as a society have been grappling with recently. It made me less inclined to use social media & re-think when/if my children should have it. Interesting re task-switching & flow states. I‘m not sure I agree with the whole thesis (companies/modern culture have stolen your attention), I try to be more optimistic, but it‘s thought-provoking.

I heard Johann Hari interviewed on Radio New Zealand & immediately knew I needed to read his book. In it, he identifies 12 main causes for our difficulties in maintaining sustained attention, and how we can make changes to improve our focus. He also argues that the problem is systemic—solving it will require changes greater than individuals can make on our own, and he convinced me that it‘s important to work together to change the system.

The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world‘s attention burns.

“Reading creates a unique form of consciousness. While we‘re reading, we‘re directing attention outwards towards the words on the page and, at the same time, enormous amounts of energy are going inwards, as we imagine and mentally simulate. […] When you read fiction in particular, you imagine what it‘s like to be another person. You find yourself trying to understand the different characters, their motivations their goals.” -Raymond Mar

When they got the results they were clear. The more novels you read, the better you were at reading other people‘s emotions. It was a huge effect. It wasn‘t just a sign that you were better educated because reading nonfiction books, by contrast, had no effect on your empathy.
(From a study by Raymond Mar, Keith Oatley and others)

The study found that technological distraction, just getting emails & calls, caused a drop in the workers‘ IQ by an average of 10 points. To give you a sense of how big that is, in the short term, that‘s twice the knock to your IQ when you smoke cannabis. So this suggests, in terms of getting your work done, you‘d be better off getting stoned at your desk than checking your texts & Facebook messages a lot.

I found the arguments, both for & against, easy to follow. The solution isn't just individual, & we shouldn't throw out all our devices & live off grid somewhere, but there are small adjustments that people can make. Societally though, there are big changes needed if these issues are not going to keep getting bigger. 4🌟

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Interesting nonfiction. It gets pretty dark before the potential solutions come around, but in the end very even. #ARC #Edelweiss