A review by bluejayreads
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari

challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

I've appreciated Johann Hari's writing since I read his Lost Connections in 2018. Stolen Focus was similarly fascinating. I appreciated how the research was tied to Johann's own journey to try and regain his own focus, and adding that little bit of topical memoir made it more engaging. (It also helps that the human relationship to technology is one that I'm very interested in.) What I also really appreciate about Johann's work is that he always comes back around to the structural problems. He starts out talking about things you can do as an individual, but this is a societal issue around the systems we've created and it will take a change to the systems and structures to completely fix it. He also doesn't shy away from calling out capitalism as the issue. Solid reporting, a fascinating subject, and the author pulls no punches.