In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari explores why our ability to pay attention has fallen dramatically. He discusses the role of speed, switching and filtering, physical and mental exhaustion, mind-wandering, the role of technology, stress, diets and ADHD among other causes.

The book is full of anecdotes and examples. I particularly enjoyed his description of sitting in on a date while drinking his coffee and observing and hearing two people talk past each other rather than have a real conversation. The discussion of reading hit home as you can see the impact of screen time on reading behaviour leading to more jumping and skipping.

The author goes through his own experiment in spending month “switched off” and the opening chapters describe his experiences during that time. In the end, he doesn’t completely blame technology although algorithms bear a lot of responsibility of course: they train our minds to crave rewards, they push us to switch tasks frequently, they learn our personal triggers, they make us angry, they make us feel others anger and they are setting society “on fire”. We need to get our (collective) attention back on what really matters.