Retrieve strategies to prevent distractions and maintain focus

Stolen Focus, a book by Johann Hari, explores the modern-day crisis of attention. According to Hari, our ability to focus has been hijacked by powerful external forces, leaving us vulnerable to corporations seeking to profit from our attention.

Causes of the Crisis

Hari identifies twelve deep causes of this crisis, including:

• Decline of mind-wandering
• Rising pollution
• External distractions
• Corporate manipulation
• Social media design
• Lack of sleep
• Poor nutrition
• Inadequate education
• Unhealthy work environments
• Unchecked technology
• Societal pressures

Reclaiming Focus

To reclaim our focus, Hari suggests:

• Reducing screen time and digital distractions
• Prioritizing sleep and nutrition
• Engaging in activities that promote mindfulness and attention
• Setting boundaries and limits with technology
• Fostering healthy work environments and social connections
• Advocating for policies that promote attention and well-being

Key Takeaways

• Our inability to focus is not a personal failing, but rather a result of external forces
• Corporations are designed to hijack our attention for profit
• We can reclaim our focus by addressing the underlying causes and making conscious choices about our behavior and environment

If you’ve been struggling to concentrate, journalist Johann Hari wants you to know that you’re not alone—and the struggle isn’t your fault. In Stolen Focus, Hari makes the case that we have a societal attention crisis: We’re all losing our ability to concentrate, which means we can't progress on our individual goals, and we can’t collectively confront the major challenges humanity faces.

Hari argues that our attention crisis is the result of outside forces stealing our focus, not the fact that we’re not trying hard enough to concentrate. He examines these forces, including everything from our food to the economy, and unlike other authors writing about distraction, he proposes societal solutions rather than individual tips.

In this guide, we’ll explore Hari’s evidence of an attention crisis, the seven factors causing this crisis, and his three-part solution. We’ll also share suggestions for action based on Hari’s insights, as well as explore perspectives from other authors that complement his ideas.

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Factor #3: Not Enough Sleep

The third factor contributing to the attention crisis is sleep deprivation. Hari believes we’re not getting enough sleep, and it’s diminishing our ability to focus.

Hari argues that sleep deprivation is not an isolated problem. The average sleep time an adult gets each night is an hour less than it was at the beginning of the 20th century. For children, the lost sleep time amounts to an hour and 25 minutes. (Shortform note: The percentage of adults sleeping significantly less than the recommended seven hours a day is so high that the CDC declared it a public health epidemic.)

Hari cites two possible explanations for widespread sleep deprivation:

1) Artificial light. Evolution made humans sensitive to light, but artificial lights interfere with our programming. Earlier humans would rise with the sun and go to sleep by sunset, but they also got a second wind around four in the afternoon, just as the sun began to set. That helped them reach safety or finish tasks before sunset. Now, Hari says, we don’t notice that change in natural light because we rely on artificial lighting. We still get that second wind but later in the evening, when we’re supposed to be getting ready for sleep.

2) Consumer capitalism. Sleep deprivation fuels the economy. Our economy relies on people consuming and producing as much as possible, and that can only happen while they’re awake.

(Shortform note: The availability of artificial light and the changing economy also limit your ability to take an afternoon nap to offset a night of insufficient sleep. Studies show that many societies considered segmented sleep normal before industrial times. People had the opportunity to nap during the day and adjust their sleeping schedule to match seasonal sunlight and temperature changes. However, the pressure of the economy and the ability to use technology to adjust the light and temperature inside buildings made siestas less common.)

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation

According to Hari, sleep deprivation diminishes your cognitive ability in five ways:

1) Your brain can’t make new connections. While you sleep, your brain makes connections among the information you learned during the day. These connections are a source of creativity. When you sleep too little, your brain creates fewer connections and becomes less creative.

2) Your brain can’t store information in its long-term memory. While you sleep, your brain retraces everything you learned during the day. The information moves to long-term storage, where you can access it even after it disappears from your short-term memory. When you don’t sleep enough, your brain doesn’t have time to move information into storage.

3) Your brain can’t cleanse itself. While you sleep, the cerebrospinal fluid cleans your brain and gets rid of the waste that accumulates throughout the day. If you’re not getting enough sleep, the brain doesn’t have time to clean up.

4) Your brain can’t dream. Dreams typically occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep and help you process the emotions you felt during the day without triggering stress hormones. But the most intense REM stages usually happen once you’ve been sleeping for seven or eight hours, which many people never get to.

5) Your brain stops paying attention. When you’re tired, you have lapses of less than a second in which you stop registering the information that’s right in front of you. These “attentional blinks” result from part of the brain falling asleep.

Sleep Deprivation’s Effects Are Insidious

Many people are sleep-deprived but don’t notice the negative impact it’s having on their cognitive skills. In Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker explains that sleep deprivation is an insidious problem because when you’re sleep-deprived, you don’t know how poorly you’re performing.And if you’re chronically sleep-deprived, your low performance becomes a new baseline, so you lose perspective. Walker warns that the combination of reduced concentration and an inflated sense of your capabilities in a sleep-deprived state is especially harmful during high-risk activities, like driving.

In addition to impairing cognitive function for the reasons Hari enumerates, chronic sleep deprivation has a host of ill effects on the body—for example, contributing to long-term problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, depression, and depressed immune function.

Factor #4: Too Many Harmful Chemicals

The fourth factor contributing to the attention crisis also disrupts the normal functions of our brains. According to Hari, toxins disrupt our brain’s chemistry and make it harder to focus.

Too Many Harmful Chemicals in Our Food

Being able to pay attention requires your body to perform physical functions, such as supplying energy and nutrients, to support your cognitive processes. There are three ways in which food can harm those functions:

1) It creates an energy roller coaster. The average diet is too high in glucose. This makes you reach energy highs right after eating and sends you on energy slumps as soon as your body finishes processing your meal’s sugar. Throughout the day, as you’re trying to concentrate, your body is riding an energy roller coaster that makes it difficult to sustain your focus.

2) Food lacks the nutrients your brain needs. Most of the food we eat today is highly processed and contains additives that make it shelf-stable but lower its nutritional value. That leaves your brain without all the nutrients it needs for your cognitive functions.

3) Food contains toxins that harm your brain. In 2009, a study found that 70% of children who eliminated preservatives and dyes from their diet saw improvements in their focus. A similar study caused European countries to ban dyes from foods but the US refused to. Hari suggests that this might account for the higher incidence of ADHD in the US.

The Damage Is Reversible

In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan sheds light on how the harm our food has done to our brains is reversible. In 1982, an Australian scientist asked 10 formerly bush-dwelling Aborigines to return to their previous lives as hunters and gatherers to see if their health improved. Since moving to civilization years before, they had developed Type 2 diabetes and were at high risk for heart disease. After seven weeks back in their old environment, the researcher tested their blood and found that every aspect of their health had improved.

The results revealed that the negative health outcomes experienced by western populations could be reduced by changes in diet. Specifically, the study suggests that consuming lower levels of sugar can have a positive impact on the body even after a short period and that consuming unprocessed foods that are closer to their origin allows better absorption of nutrients and less absorption of toxins that trigger imbalances in the body.

Too Many Harmful Chemicals in Our Environment

Hari says toxins in our environment also contribute to the attention crisis, including:

1) Pollution. Air pollution causes inflammation in the brain. Studies link this inflammation to a 15% higher risk of developing dementia and to a higher risk of degenerative diseases in children. Researchers found a direct correlation between children’s difficulty in paying attention and the level of pollution in their communities.

2) BPA. Bisphenol A is present in the plastic lining of 80% of cans. A study found that if you’re exposed to BPA during pregnancy, your child is more likely to develop behavioral problems.

3) Endocrine disruptors. A study found that many of the chemicals present in our environment and everyday products disrupt endocrine (hormonal) signals. This is particularly worrying in the case of children whose bodies and brains are still developing. If their brains don’t develop properly, they’re more likely to have attention problems or other cognitive deficits.

Protect Yourself From Toxins

Although environmental toxins are everywhere, there are still some things you can do to protect yourself:

• Exercise regularly to help your body combat the inflammation caused by toxins.
• Avoid being around smoke, including cigarette smoke and wood fires.
• Get a high-efficiency particulate filter to protect yourself from pollution in your community.
• When buying plastic or canned products, check that they’re labeled BPA-free or that there’s a #1, #2, or #4 next to the recycling symbol, which also indicates that they’re BPA-free.
• Avoid endocrine disruptors by drinking filtered water instead of bottled water, not microwaving food in plastic containers, and washing produce to get rid of pesticides.

Factor #5: Too Much Distracting Technology

The fifth factor contributing to the attention crisis is technology. Hari argues that the technology we rely on tracks our every move and tailors the content we see in order to keep us hooked.

Technology Hurts Our Focus as Individuals

Hari contends most technology is intentionally designed to distract us—for profit. The business model of most screen-based technology relies on engagement. Every second you’re watching your screen is an advertising second tech companies can sell.

The more engaged you are with technology, the more distracted you are from whatever you’re supposed to be doing. Hari identifies three ways tech disrupts your attention:

1) Designing for interruptions. Technology operates on the insights of behavioral psychology: People crave rewards and they will adjust their behavior to get them. Technology can train you to need whatever reward it can offer so that you stay engaged for as long as possible, or return to it as quickly as possible.

2) Accumulating your metadata. Every time you click on something, you feed information to the website or application you’re using. That information helps the business behind it build an accurate file on who you are and what you’re into. That information tells it what kind of content to show you to keep you glued to your screen. Companies use your data to persuade advertisers to spend money on their site or app because they know who to show ads to. This is known as surveillance capitalism.

3) Making you angry. To keep your eyes on them for as long as possible, apps developed sophisticated algorithms that show you the content they know you’ll respond to. But the negativity bias we all have makes you pay special attention to information that makes you upset or angry. Anger diminishes your ability to pay attention to the quality of ideas you encounter. You default to deciding how the idea makes you feel, rather than critically analyzing its value.

Technology Hurts Our Focus as a Society

Hari argues that anger also disrupts our ability to see larger commonalities and solve problems collectively as a society. This happens in two ways:

1) Since each individual is receiving input that’s making them angry and is sharing that anger online, you come to believe that everyone is enraged.

2) At the same time, social media makes it easier for misinformation to spread. That means people are often incensed about incorrect information. The feeling of collective anger and the difficulty in finding the right information makes you vigilant and defensive and makes it harder to have constructive conversations.

Protect Your Focus From Technology

There are strategies to avoid the dangers of technology that Hari lays out above:

1) Anticipate distractions. In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport argues that if you understand how technology works, you can be strategic in how you use it. For example, social media apps are designed to be more addictive than their web versions, so you can delete the apps from your phone and access your accounts from the web browser.

2) Make yourself harder to surveil. Tech’s surveillance capitalism techniques will always be one step ahead, but you can still make their job a little harder. For example, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to keep your browsing information encrypted, block cookies, and create an alternative email address for websites that require you to give information.

3) Be aware. Next time you find yourself getting angry over something you see online,

Factor #6: Too Much Information, Too Fast

The sixth factor Hari identifies as contributing to the attention crisis is information overload, which makes it difficult to focus long enough to process what we’re seeing and hearing.

The Acceleration of Information

The amount of information available and the speed at which we encounter it are constantly increasing, but our brains can’t keep up. So we jump from one piece of information to the next without focusing. Although we tend to blame the internet for this problem, research shows that our inability to concentrate predates technology.

New topics have become popular more and more quickly since at least the 19th century, and the public has lost interest in them at the same speed. Researchers found that topics on Twitter trended for 17.5 hours in 2013 and only 11.9 hours in 2016. Similarly, data from Google books suggests that topics have been falling in and out of popularity more quickly with each passing decade before the internet set the churn rate at maximum speed.

The amount of information available determines the churn rate. The researchers built a mathematical model to determine what caused topics to quickly gain and lose popularity. They discovered a simple answer: When more information is available, people’s capacity to process it diminishes, and they move on to the next thing more quickly.

This acceleration of information is a problem for two reasons:

1) We can’t grapple with or solve complex problems. Since we’re constantly bombarded with new information we can’t keep up with, we have only a superficial grasp of every topic.

2) People with enough resources will find ways to protect themselves from the onslaught of information, such as taking a break from technology with a “digital detox.” Those with fewer resources will continue to be overwhelmed. 

Our Brains Are on Autopilot Mode

The reason we jump from one piece of information to the next without grappling deeply with any of it might be our natural tendency to default to autopilot mode.

Autopilot mode kept us alive in ancient times by keeping us alert to changes in our environment. The quicker we noticed danger, the quicker we could react to and avoid it. And the quicker we noticed gratifying things, the faster we could take advantage of them.

However, autopilot mode has one major drawback: It makes us prone to distraction. In autopilot, you automatically react to anything new, potentially dangerous, or gratifying. This inclination makes us susceptible to distraction because usually, the thing we’re trying to focus on is not as new, gratifying, or potentially dangerous as other things in the room.

Our Brains Can’t Process All the Information Available

According to Hari, the acceleration of information is damaging because our brains are unable to process all of it. There are three main reasons for this:

1) Our brain’s filter is overwhelmed by the amount of information it receives. The brain’s prefrontal cortex filters out unnecessary information but it cannot keep up with the current flow of information.

2) Our brain operates better at a slower pace. Researchers have found that the faster you read, the less information you understand and the more you gravitate to reading easier material. Conversely, slowing down improves your concentration. People who participate in activities that force them to slow down, such as yoga, increase their ability to focus. That’s because they’re retraining their brains to move at a speed that’s suited to their capabilities.

3) Our brain has a limited processing capacity. Hari explains that the human brain can only process one or two thoughts at a time. Yet we expect it to process much more than that, such as when we “multitask.” But the best the human brain can do is jump very quickly from one task to another, reconfiguring itself between tasks and having a negative impact on the quality of all the tasks.

Factor #7: Too Much Emphasis on Individual Responsibility

The final factor contributing to the attention crisis is how we’ve attempted to deal with it. Hari believes the solutions put forward for the attention crisis are lacking because they focus on personal responsibility. We’ll explore how the same forces that made it more difficult to concentrate are making individual action seem like the only solution and why it doesn’t work.

The Individualistic Approach to the Attention Crisis

As we saw in Factor #5, tech is designed to reel you in and keep you scrolling. And the tech industry’s preferred approach to fixing your attention is encouraging you to have more self-control so you can resist their tactics. That way, Hari argues, they can frame the problem as a lack of discipline on your part, not intentionally manipulative design on their part.

Step 1: Get you hooked on technology. In Hooked, Eyal explains that the central goal of designers and engineers is to get users dependent on the technology they’ve created. To achieve this, they need to create internal triggers—uncomfortable emotions, such as fear or boredom, that make the user need whatever it is the technology can offer. That way, the user develops a habit and needs the app to satisfy that internal trigger again and again. The stronger the habit, the more the company can rely on that user to provide value for a long time.

Step 2: Make you question your habits, not the technology. In Indistractible, Eyal lays out strategies to insulate yourself from the mechanisms technology uses to disrupt your focus. He believes that individuals should critically examine their own habits before going after tech companies. He encourages identifying the personal internal triggers that make you vulnerable to distraction and finding the right strategy to counter them.

Nir Eyal Explains the Difference Between His Books

He argues that Hooked is about building good habits in customers’ lives. It’s not a guide for tech companies to foster harmful habits. He believes the techniques he shares can be used to make the lives of users better through the habits technology helps them create, such as fitness or spirituality.

Cruel Optimism

Hari argues that the tech world’s approach to the attention crisis is an example of “cruel optimism.” It’s optimistic because it offers a solution, but cruel because the problem is so much bigger than the solution. According to Hari, cruel optimism accepts that the system can’t change and so it’s worthless to try. But he points out that society has fixed (or at least reduced) systemic problems before. Cruel optimism is a distraction from systemic solutions that can work for more people.

A Way Out of the Attention Crisis

While Hari agrees there are useful tricks for disciplining your focus, and he practices some himself, he believes they’re not enough. His proposed solution for the attention crisis has two parts: systemic changes around technology, work, and school, and a citizen-led movement.

Part #1 of the Solution: Systemic Changes

According to Hari, our model of constant economic growth drives most of the factors contributing to the attention crisis. “Success” under the economic growth model requires companies to get larger and individuals to get richer. To grow, businesses continuously find ways to sell more products, which traps consumers in a pattern of doing more and buying more each year. Hari contends that the stress of a growth-oriented society undermines our ability to focus, and because it’s a societal problem, it requires societal solutions.

He argues that we could shift from constant growth to a steady-state economy. In this new model, we would define success by different values, such as having job security and enough time to pursue goals outside of work. This would require changing how society functions today, including the tech business model, and work and school schedules.

 Business leaders would need to stop seeing profit generation as their sole objective. This way, the push for growth could take a back seat to goals such as the health of workers and consumers.)

Hari advocates three systemic changes to address stress and inability to focus:

1) Fewer work hours. Some companies have established four-day work weeks or reduced daily hours without compromising productivity. This has given workers more time to rest and participate in activities that are meaningful to them, helping them feel less stressed and more engaged with their work. However, Hari warns that this change only benefits salaried workers.

 A study in Sweden found that the patients of nurses who worked six-hour shifts instead of eight-hour shifts had better outcomes, and, even though hospitals had to hire more nurses, they spent less on their workforce thanks to less rotation and burnout among their employees.)

2) More opportunities for children to play. As we’ve seen in Factors #1 and #2, stress and anxiety can lead to children developing attention problems, and one way for them to learn to manage negative emotions is by allowing them more time to play. Hari believes schools should offer more opportunities for students to play and pursue their own interests, and focus less on standardized testing. Outside of school, adults should give children time to play, be curious, and be outdoors instead of in front of screens. A survey found that they spent around four more hours a week in unstructured activities.)

3) Different technology under different incentives. There are changes that could make technology less disruptive. Hari proposes removing features that intentionally interfere with your attention, such as incessant notifications, and adding features to bring you back to reality, such as slowing down the download speed after you’ve spent a certain amount of time on a website.

However, Hari argues that there are no incentives for technology companies to make their products less disruptive. The only way for those incentives to shift is by banning surveillance capitalism or making it illegal to compile people’s data and use it to target their vulnerabilities. This would reform the business model that most tech companies rely on.

Likely Foes of Tech Regulation

To change the way technology works and its underlying incentive structure, reformers might have to face defenders of the status quo.

1) Free market fundamentalists, who believe that free markets are the only economic system that allows for freedom. They are opposed to regulation, particularly international treaties.

2) Cornucopians or technophiles, who believe that technology will fix all of humanity’s problems. Cornucopianism disregards the fact that technology is not developing quickly enough to solve today’s challenges, and that it can even move us in the opposite direction.

Part #2 of the Solution: Attention Rebellion

Finally, Hari argues that the attention crisis warrants an “attention rebellion” to galvanize millions of people to pressure governments and businesses to make changes. He believes that sparking this movement requires the following steps:

1) A symbolic moment that raises awareness. At an initial stage, a group of core activists who are well-informed on the attention crisis must stage a symbolic battle against the forces stealing our focus. For example, they might hack social media networks for a day to show people that it’s possible to live without these apps. That symbolic battle would help more people understand the gravity of the situation.

2) A wider movement involving political and social actors. As more people become engaged in the issue, it will be necessary to involve some of them in the political arena so they can influence decision-makers, while others continue to energize normal citizens to become involved and exert pressure on governments and companies.

What to do?

1) Always keep the big picture in mind. Even after you’ve started acting, maintain your diagnostic mindset so you can keep a clear head, continue to look at the situation objectively, and change course if necessary.

2) Assess how widespread the urgency to change is. If only one group is ready to deal with a challenge, your first step will be to make the issue urgent for everyone. You can do this in a variety of ways, such as raising the challenge directly, challenging people, or asking questions. This is where a symbolic awareness-raising moment is necessary.

3) Decide how to frame and state your intervention. Clearly communicate the course of action and why it’s important. It must resonate with other people’s points of view, not yours, and inspire them. Use whatever mix of facts and emotions will connect to your group’s values and find the balance between uninspiring language and fear-mongering. This is where more people join the movement and invite others to join as well.

4) Relinquish control. Once you’ve set off an intervention, let other people discuss and change it. This will encourage others to fill the space you’ve left open and also allow you to assess progress and plan your next step.

5) Use the factions within your team as a proxy for broader factions. As an intervention grows, some people will engage with it and others will resist it. Notice who falls into each group, and predict how broader factions might react to start addressing large-scale resistance.

All over the world, our ability to pay attention is collapsing. In the US, college students now focus on one task for only 65 seconds, and office workers on average manage only three minutes. New York Times best-selling author Johann Hari went on an epic journey across the world to meet the leading scientists and experts investigating why this is happening to us – and discovered that everything we think we know on this subject is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failing – a flaw in each one of us. It is not. This has been done to us – by powerful external forces. Our focus has been stolen.

Johann discovered there are twelve deep cases of this crisis, all of which have robbed some of our attention. He shows how he learned this in a thrilling journey that takes him from Silicon Valley dissidents who figured out how to hack human attention, to veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD; from a favela in Rio where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, to an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore their workers’ attention.

Crucially, he learned how – as individuals, and as a society – we can get our focus back, if we are determined to fight for it. The answers will surprise and thrill you. This is a book about our attention crisis unlike any you’ve read before.