I’ve come to writing this review late, so this likely won’t be as thorough as I would have liked. This is an important book and one of my favorite reads so far this year—it couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s almost the end of the term and unsurprisingly, I’m struggling to properly sit down and focus to finish a term paper and thesis draft. What I appreciate most about Stolen Focus is that Hari leads you through several different ‘causes’ behind the current attention crisis. He does give a few chapters to smartphones and social media, but he is quite adamant that these are far from the only things, and he denies that this crisis can be solved simply by using our phones less.

The book’s structure makes it fairly easy to get into. Hari begins each chapter with a brief anecdote from his personal life, then he extracts an important question or theme from this. From there, he takes the reader to the experts—various professors, academics, researchers that he has consulted with—and distills their research into palatable language. All of this makes for a very compelling read. When I started reading, I found it hard to put down; I probably would have finished it much faster, but I found myself increasingly distracted (heh) by current events. Time is strange; it seemed to go by so slowly when I was reading it, and yet, now that I’ve finished, it’s speeding up again (and I’m even closer to my deadlines).

Reading about Hari’s detoxing experiment in Provincetown, Massachusetts was fascinating and even nostalgic; it’s a reminder of an era gone by—before we were hooked up to the internet constantly. Right now, we are experiencing perhaps the first major ‘social media’ war; I know several people who’ve been following updates on the war in Ukraine nearly 24/7, like a drip feed. Can anyone convincingly argue that this is better for our mental health than getting a daily newspaper just once in the morning? We’re so inundated with information that our minds have to constantly filter between bits and pieces, switching tasks, and be on high alert. No wonder sleep, relaxation, productivity, etc. will suffer. Hari presents his arguments in such a way that one can’t help but think, ‘Well of course we’re fucked, given all these conditions.’

I was previously familiar with some of the things he mentions, like the Center for Humane Technology, and I saw the documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’. The latter focuses on Big Tech in particular, but this book of course goes beyond that. I have also heard about the default mode and task positive networks (in an ADHD context, curiously). Nevertheless, I found a lot of new information in Hari’s book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow was very interesting, and it got me to think about my own actions in a different way. Although I initially felt that I was less addicted to social media than Hari (at least at the outset), this book has spelled out that no one is really immune to the effects of the attention crisis. For example, this is a very relatable feeling:

‘The idea of not filling every minute with stimulation panicked me, and I found it weird when I saw other people not doing it.’

I also started reflecting on the few earlier memories I have of childhood. As an adult, I was always quick to dismiss myself as ‘just not a creative person’, but as a child I used to love writing, drawing, making videos, etc. My mind saw unlimited potential and had infinite energy for all of these efforts. Somehow, between then and now, I can see why Hari would say my attention has not only been diminished, but stolen.

Hari offers insights and advice to help combat the attention crisis, but he emphasizes that he is still struggling himself to repair his attention (and this is what separates this book from the self-help genre—the author acknowledges his own shortcomings) and that this must be a collectivized effort against the forces that are stealing our attention. We need to unionize and demand our attention, essentially. I’m all for it—though I am perhaps a lot less optimistic than Hari that this will actually pan out. In that regard, I’m glad that this book has been making lists and headlines, because it’s an important one; I hope it is sufficient in getting the movement started.

People are quick to dismiss the criticisms of technology and the symptoms of our attention crisis—‘even Socrates was against writing, all generations have the same resistance to technological improvements’. Yes, Socrates was against writing, but was he wrong? How many of us modern day city dwellers can recite a few verses of poetry, or recollect important facts without having to resort to Google? Or remember a good friend’s phone number? (Today, I’m only able to remember my immediate family’s phone numbers, which were all memorized in childhood, and which have not changed overmuch.) Writing has undoubtedly been a helpful tool to humanity, but it was the first step in compartmentalizing our memories and learning to an external medium. The role of the internet and social media and smartphones is to externalize not only memories of epic poems but nearly our entire brain. Hari offers an effective and convincing counterpoint to the ‘cruel optimists’ camp of this debate, figures like Nir Eyal and much of Silicon Valley.

‘In a culture built on ever-increasing speed, slowing down is hard, and most of us will feel guilty about doing it.’

While I greatly enjoyed this book, the last few chapters on the ‘rise of ADHD’ turned to slightly controversial territory. I don’t doubt that kids have a lot of external factors contributing to their attention problems, and I can sympathize with the hyper-pathology of children; but Hari veers a dangerous line between attributing some causes of some children diagnosed with ADHD and attributing these same causes towards ADHD in general. Environmental and dietary factors are important, but ADHD is also a very real condition reflected in neurological factors. I also found some of Hari’s conclusions drawn from some studies to be overly simplistic and perhaps too convenient for his argument; scientific studies are hardly ever that certain, and I can appreciate that he is writing to a different audience. But his presentation of some claims does not make that distinction clear.

Hari does offer a few advice and tips, all of which I need to make better use of, particularly pre-committment. Somehow while I was reading the book, I actually did decently well and leaving my phone well alone; somehow, afterwards, with the increasing escalation of global chaos, my phone hours went up again (to my great shame). Now they’re going back down, but still not as much as I would like. (And evidently I’m spending time writing Goodreads reviews when I should really be working on my term paper.) So pre-commitment would be a good step, along with trying to get back into a better sleep schedule. I also need to incorporate more exercise and ‘mind-wandering’ walks and meditation. This review is just going to be my own accountability in terms of adapting some of these changes. Future me: I don’t want to let you down.

‘James Williams wrote: “I used to think there were no great political struggles left…. How wrong I was. The liberation of human attention may be the defining moral and political struggle of our time. Its success is the prerequisite for the success of virtually all other struggles.”’

P.S. There is an audiobook version but I definitely recommend reading and not listening to this book if you can.