Attention Rebellion

“Stolen Focus - Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again” by Johan Hari, 2023

Hari is a professional, harried by his cell phone, his apps, his poor sleeping habits, his general inability to concentrate as well as he used to.  He’s also a bit naïve.  He’s the author of “Lost Connections” and a workaholic, so he interviews 250 scientists, techies, counselors, psychologists and sociologists to find out why, as he thinks this is a social problem too.  Here is what he discovered.  Unsurprisingly, it is not unconnected to the social system we live in.

These are the culprits, in the order of the book.  Most of this is pretty obvious, but ...

*Digital detoxes only go so far.  His only worked for a while.

*The speed-up of everything.  Increased complexity, demands, schedules.

*The impossibility of actually focusing on more than one thing at a time.  The human mind cannot do ‘focus’ multi-tasking.

*Not enough sleep.  Beware of coffee, melatonin, lights, screens at night.

*The interruptions of the internet, e-mail, texts, pop-ups, notifications, etc.

*The intentionally addictive nature of social media, due to profit considerations.

*The intentional role of social media in creating conspiracy nuts and nonsense, which was proved by internal Facebook investigations.

*Long work hours – and this also means the 8 hour day, not just multiple jobs, overtime, on-call or endless salaried hours.

*Stress from various sources, some very high stress, some low, some omnipresent and constant.

*Toxic and ultra-high processed industrial junk food, producing brain fog and lack of clarity. 

*Pollution – lead, pesticides, BPAs, PFAS, particulates, exhaust, cosmetics, water contamination, toxic home products, etc.

*Children no longer play freely outdoors.  Most play inside, under supervision, or in supervised programs, weakening their ability to formulate thoughts. 

The signs of inability to concentrate can be found in productivity figures.  They can be found in people who are unable to read books, or concentrate on a movie or listen to music other than as background noise.  Or even finish a long blog post. It can be seen in their inability to have a real conversation or pay attention to their kids. It can be seen in the inability to think deeply about anything. The stress from poverty, medical bills, violence, a chaotic home life, unemployment and jobs also interrupts focus. It ends up with poor life performance, failure to learn, so-called ADHD and eventually dementia. All of this is mostly related to the profit system.

Nationalize Big Tech as a Public Utility

Hari continually wrestles with whether these are individual issues, or if they extend to the social, and finally decides on the latter. He highlights the notion of ‘cruel optimism’ – that some easy fix like yoga or a pill or some personal change will solve everything.  Re pollution, chemicals in the U.S. are actually unregulated.  Only later, when it’s discovered that they damage people ‘might’ these chemicals get regulated or banned.  Long hours at work would ‘seem’ to get more work done, but the reverse is true, as experiments on the 4 day week or the 6 hour day for the same pay show.  Workers actually become more productive!  Tell that to your boss. Social media is intentionally constructed by the Silicon Valley capitalists to be addictive, to 'hook' you, to keep you on their sites so they can sell your information and eyeballs to advertisers. Speed-up and lack of sleep are related to labor issues, but we see it in the way films are constructed, in the moronic jumpiness of pictures and slogans on X/Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, FB, YouTube, or in the way some people talk, drive, walk or ride.  Even political discussions become dumbed down and lacking in nuance.  Everything becomes part of the ‘short attention span theater.’

Hari takes a deep dive into ADHD ‘diagnoses’ – finding that the root cause is not biological but something in home or school life that is interfering with attention.  So the solution is not Ritalin but a practical fix – if possible. The key science that supposes ADHD is fully inherited are twin studies, which he gives credence too – even though they are inaccurate in racist ‘intelligence’ estimates. He does not mention intrauterine issues like alcohol or drug use.  He settles on a position of the dialectic interaction of genes and the environment, in which certain environmental changes can trigger biologic forces. 

He also looks at how children can no longer play freely outside, and how the parents of ‘free range’ children are condemned and insulted.  Even pets suffer neurotic behavior from being caged at home. Free play encourages creativity and imagination; social skills and the sense of freedom in kids – all useful in being able to actually pay attention.  He tracks a program that brings free play to elementary schools as part of the program.  As an aside, Finland has been doing this for years, and Hari points to their lack of tests, homework and emphasis on play, while still producing educated, happy and creative adults.

Finally his solutions.  He tries to get more sleep, turn off his phone, stops switching tasks, get into a ‘flow state’ to think deeply and lets his mind wander.  He has a hard time stopping the eating of crap food and still personally overworks. His social recommendations are:  1. Stop surveillance capitalism by either nationalizing or harshly regulating the tech giants; 2. Go to a 4 day week with 40 hours pay, or 6 hour days for the same pay; 3. Transform education so as to let in more free play and more exercise, with less homework and teaching to the test.   He most fears that ‘rigid’ short-term, shallow thinking will block humans from dealing with climate change.  Perhaps he should say it outright – that the capitalist system blocks any sufficient attempt to deal with global warming, even if we all suddenly realized the danger we are in.

All together a good companion volume to his book about ‘lost connections.’  It’s a bit obvious but has useful data to back up most of the points. It’s also an easy and enjoyable read, which for a public intellectual is a requirement.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms:  “Lost Connections” (Hari); “Psychology and Capitalism,” “Bright Sided” (Ehrenreich); “The Happiness Industry,” “The Ego and Its Hyperstate,” “McMindfulness.”  

Red Frog

November 17, 2023