Stolen Focus

Adult nonfiction 

     Have you ever googled something and found something else of interest...and emerged from a fog eventually to discover that four hours have slipped away?  Does your self esteem rise and fall depending on how many likes you receive?  Is your smartphone the first thing you grab in the morning and the last thing you put down at night?  Does your ability to focus feel frazzled and fried?  Do you feel like you have a problem?

     A lot of authors will agree that you do.  But they'll frame it as a personal deficit.  Their books will give you the techniques to eliminate distractions and regain your ability to concentrate.  Just.  Like.  That.

     Johann Hari's Stolen Focus is not one of those books.  Hari went to extremes most of us can't to try to find his individual solution.  He stayed on a beautiful island with no internet connection for three months.  That's way beyond turning your devices off two hours before bedtime or doing a weekend long social media fast.  He saw improvement, but not all he was hoping for.  When he started jetting around the world interviewing experts the big picture came into focus.

     We are not at fault; the society we live in very much is.

     In his book Hari describes twelve major factors.  Some will come as no surprise.  Many won't. 

     I think most of us will in in implicating technology.  A world of constant pings and other distractions is not at all conducive to focus.  But ignoring devices isn't as easy as you'd think.  Big tech companies have legions of very smart scientists working around the clock to make their products all the more addictive.  The more time we spend in real life, the lower their profits will be.  They would love for us to believe that any discontent we're experiencing is merely the product of our weaknesses.  No need for a revolution here, folx.

     And how about stress? How about not getting enough sleep?  Did all nighters really work for you in college?  How about our increasing consumption of processed foods that don't contain all the nutrients our precious brains need?  How about the deleterious effects of environmental toxins?

     Hari believes that solutions to our failure to focus do exist.  But they don't exist on the individual level.  If you want to be part of the solution or simply to understand what's going on you owe it to yourself to read Stolen Focus.

On a purrrsonal note, today I want to tell you all about one of the super heroes in my life.  Peter is a modest, unassuming,  and very friendly librarian at Orono Public Library who tracks down other librarys' books I can't find on Minerva like the Scooby Doo gang tracks down miscreants.  He just located four I had my heart set on reviewing.  

Readers, in the future I'll be sharing about the super heroes in my life.  As you'll be reading in the next review I post, the American ideal of rugged individualism is toxic for all but the most rich and powerful.  Interdependence is far more healthy.  My super heroes don't leap tall buildings or stop speeding locomotives.  But to me they matter immensely.  I hope that by this sharing I'll help you think about your super heroes.

Anyway a great big shout out goes out to Peter and the rest of the librarians at Orono Public Library.

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