Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again

In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari shows the proper way to write about a complex topic that you have strong feelings about. He cites many different sources and explores different avenues. Even in the areas that he feels most strongly about, he cites those with different views. He does not dismiss them out of hand, but does clearly identify flaws with their arguments. 

The central argument is that modern culture has made it impossible to focus. Companies business models rely on keeping us engaged with devices. This is to the detriment of us individually and to society as a whole. The author describes his attempt at "digital detox" at the start. He went off to Provincetown, disconnected from the internet and tried to focus on life. He did find it refreshing. When he got back he found that the urgent queue of email he was seeking did not materialize. He struggled from withdrawal, but was able to appreciate life without being tethered.

He then seeks to further analyze the problems we face and argues that while we can do a little to help ourselves, what we really need to address is the society that we live in. Social media algorithms seek to drive engagement. People tend to be engaged more with things that make them angry than with things that make them happy. This leads to algorithms driving people to more polarizing content that contributes to the mess that we are in as a society today. These algorithms can manipulate us without us (or the algorithm creators) even knowing it. When used for bad, the results can be devastating. 

It is difficult to live untethered in today's society. Payphones don't exist. People just expect for their phone to give them directions. Pre-arranged "meeting places" are often just the first step that is later coordinated by phone conversation. We expect to get a quick response from somebody. Waiting hours or days is not expected. All of the immediate feedback vying for our attention makes it more challenging for us to accomplish anything of substance. We end up occupying our time being "busy" with menial activities. Trying to stop "surveillance capitalism" may provide a brief reprieve. However, even outside of the push of media, we are being pushed by society. The author notes that culture has been "accelerating" for the last century. What is the endgame? Can we slow things down? Or do we just need to wait for the crash?