Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention

Johann Hari

Paperback, 352 pages

9781526620217

Why have we lost our ability to focus? What are the causes? And, most importantly, how do we get it back? For Stolen Focus, internationally bestselling author Johann Hari went on a three-year journey to uncover the reasons behind our shortening attention spans. He interviewed the leading experts in the world on attention, and learned that everything we think about this subject is wrong. We think our inability to focus is a personal failing - a flaw in each one of us. It is not. This has been done to all of us by powerful external forces. Our focus has been stolen. Johann discovered there are twelve deep cases of this crisis, all of which have robbed some of our attention. He shows us how in a thrilling journey that ranges from Silicon Valley dissidents, to a favela in Rio where attention vanished, to an office in New Zealand that found a remarkable way to restore our attention. Crucially, he learned how - as individuals, and as a society - we can get our focus back, if we are determined to fight for it.

Contents

1. Cause 1: The Increase in Speed, Switching and Filtering

2. Cause 2: The Crippling of Our Senses

3. Cause 3: The Rise of Physical and Mental Exhaustion

4. Cause 4: The Collapse of Sustained Reading

5. Cause 5: The Disruption of Mind-Wandering

6. Cause 6: The Rise of Technology that can Track and Manipulate You (Part 1)

7. Cause 6: The Rise of Technology that can Track and Manipulate You (Part 2)

8. Cause 7: The Rise of Cruel Optimism

9. The First Glimpses of the Deeper Solution

10. Cause 8: The Surge in Stree and How it is Triggering Vigilance

11. The Places that Figured Out How to Reverse the Surge in Speed and Exhaustion

12. Causes 9 and 10: Our Deteriorating Diets and Rising Pollution

13. Cause 11: The Rise of ADHD and How we are Responding to It

14. Cause 12: The Confinement of Our Children, Both Physically and Psychologically

Conclusion: Attention Rebellion