Stolen Focus

Psychology

Print length: 352 pagesBloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023

Description

Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus investigates why sustained attention has become harder in the information age and considers twelve underlying causes. Hari distinguishes personal responsibility from deeper systemic forces, discussing exhaustion, smartphone distraction, attention-capturing technology, multitasking, and the stress created by constant workplace availability. He also examines how Facebook and YouTube use personal-data-driven recommendations to optimize screen time and engagement. A digital-detox experiment improved his own ability to clear his mind and focus, while his discussion of mind-wandering argues that healthy attention is not simply constant concentration. Hari ultimately advocates collective, system-level solutions and presents attention protection as a public-health concern.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Direct · Journalistic

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Cerebral · Earnest · Hopeful · Reflective

Structure

Argumentative

Focus

Argument · Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

Knowledge and truthMental healthPowerTechnology and societyWork

About Johann Hari

Johann Hari is a British writer and journalist whose books examine public crises through reported journeys, interviews, personal experience, and broad syntheses of research. He repeatedly questions explanations that place responsibility solely on individuals, looking instead at the social conditions and institutions shaping addiction, depression, anxiety, and attention. Chasing the Scream combines a history of drug criminalization with testimony from people affected by it. Lost Connections uses studies and case histories to challenge a narrowly chemical account of depression and anxiety, while Stolen Focus connects difficulties with sustained attention to technology, work culture, exhaustion, and other systemic pressures. This movement between intimate stories and large explanatory arguments is characteristic of his work, as is a preference for accessible frameworks organized around multiple causes. His career also carries a serious breach of trust: his newspaper tenure at The Independent ended after he admitted plagiarism and fabrication, as well as malicious edits to other journalists’ Wikipedia pages.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Language: English
ISBN: 9781526620217

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