Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention

He's also somewhat controversial. Back in 2011, he was forced to resign his position at a British newspaper following allegations of plagiarism and fabrication. He also made malicious edits to the Wikipedia pages of journalists who had exposed him. He emerged from the episode in a very poor light, and was forced to return an industry award he'd previously received.

So why present a Book Insight on his work? Because the subject is important, the book is well-researched and timely, and it has gained significant attention and praise.

So keep listening to find out why the attention crisis is important, how Big Tech works like magic, and how even optimism can be cruel.

So why does it matter if we can't focus? People have always been distracted by things. Nowadays we have the internet and social media. But surely the constant stream of information we all receive benefits us more than it harms?

Not so, says Hari, and he gives three reasons why we need to address the crisis in our attention.

First, it's important for individuals. An unfocused life is a diminished life. If you're constantly distracted, you can't hope to work at your best or achieve what you want to.

Second is the effect this is having on wider society. We're not rising to our biggest challenges. Climate change is a good example. It's a huge problem that needs clear thinking, and everyone's attention. We're failing to take enough notice.

Third, we can only change something when we understand it. It's only when we grasp how much our attention is compromised, and what that means, that we can hope to do something about it.

Hari examines the causes of our diminished attention over 14 chapters and a conclusion. He identifies 12 different causes, from the rise of manipulative technology to the declining quality of our diet.

"Stolen Focus" isn't an academic book. It's a coming together of personal experience and extensive research. It's also a call to action.

The personal experience begins with Hari's deep unease over the extent to which his godson is distracted by social media. It extends to his own attempt to escape the online world. This sees him flee to an offline existence in an isolated community on the east coast of America. His experiences and reflections there form a thread running through the book.

Another theme that recurs repeatedly is that the attention crisis is a systemic problem. It's not just something that each individual in society can solve for themselves. We're all in the grip of forces beyond our control.

First, there's the sheer pace of modern life. Everything seems to happen instantly, from messaging friends to buying groceries. And we receive information quickly and in huge volumes. This overloads our brains.

Along with this comes the problem of "switching." We're constantly shifting focus from one thing to another. Email to text, notification to pop-up ad, task to task: it's endless. And the human brain really isn't as good at multitasking as we think and hope it is.

Nor can it always filter the huge amount of stimuli coming at it. So those stimuli end up fighting for attention and resources – and interfering with clear thought patterns.

This is most clear in the decline in our ability to experience "flow." Flow is when we focus solely on one thing. We give our entire attention to a single activity, to the extent that we may not even notice time passing.

People in technologically advanced societies are losing the ability to experience flow, and that's a problem. It's where we're at our most innovative, and where we're most likely to solve problems or devise strategy. If we're slaves to every bleep and jingle from our smartphones, we can't hope to experience flow. The problem is, we need those bleeps and jingles. We've become hooked on them. But they're fragmenting our ability to think properly.

So, what psychological and physical effect does this avalanche of stimuli have? Not surprisingly, Hari concludes that it's negative.

For example, he looks in detail at the effects of lack of sleep on our wellbeing. People in technologically advanced societies are increasingly sleepless and exhausted. Our ancestors, even our relatively recent ones, relied on the rhythms of sunrise and sunset to tell them when to go to bed and when to wake up. Now we seem to actively fight against sleep. We have alarms to wake us, caffeine drinks to keep us from feeling tired, and endless distractions to keep us awake long after it would be healthier to be in bed.

The results are alarming. People who sleep less than seven hours per night are worse at making decisions. They can even struggle with basic tasks that need concentration. And today, 40 percent of Americans are deprived of sleep over long periods. Almost a quarter of people in the United Kingdom get less than five hours' sleep, every night. And they're all harming themselves.

The future could be even worse. The effects of sleep deprivation are particularly severe on children and young adults. One study showed that American college students had the same quality of sleep as soldiers on active service or parents of a newborn baby. So the next generation in the workplace will likely be short on sleep, attention and peak performance.

Hari goes on to examine our failing ability to pay attention to tasks that earlier generations would have found easy. One is the collapse of sustained reading. Sure, we can get the gist of an email, or a tweet, but relatively few of us can now read over a sustained period. And when you can't read except in small bursts, you're less likely to understand information correctly.

One intriguing insight is that people who read fiction regularly, and with focus, tend to be more empathetic. And empathy is an important skill in working collaboratively. An issue Hari comes back to is the way that people broadcast, but don't receive. We hold forth on Twitter or Facebook and enjoy the attention this gets us, but our capacity for empathy is eroded.

Insights like these are not new, of course. We all know that sleep is good for us and that we have to get on with one another. So why haven't we acted on this? Why don't we push back with more vigor against these negative forces?

You've already heard that Hari considers the loss of attention to be a systemic problem. Sure, there are things we can do for ourselves. We can turn off our phones and resolve to get more sleep. But the forces ranged against us are huge and powerful.

In two chapters on the rise of technology, Hari concentrates on one aspect of the online world: its ability to track and manipulate us. Most of us give our personal data, willingly, to online platforms. They use that data to produce complex profiles of us. And they use those profiles to attract our attention and sell us things.

Hari likens the process to stage magic. When a magician performs a card trick, they aren't actually making anything disappear, or reading your mind. They're simply and skillfully manipulating the limits of your attention. And the most skillful can make you take any decision they want you to.

Big Tech uses our data to manipulate us in a similar way. Hari spends a lot of time interviewing key figures in Silicon Valley. It's one of the most compelling parts of the book. He interviews engineers and tech visionaries who design systems to capture our attention and make us react in particular ways. He also interviews some who know how the system works, but have ethical doubts about what they're doing.

The conclusions are stark. It's all very well telling people that all they need do is remove an app or turn off their phone. But the tech industry puts huge resources into making them do exactly the opposite. The profiles they build are not merely records of name, age and location. They know what we like, what will trigger a reaction from us, what we might buy or vote for.

There's also a host of social and environmental factors affecting our ability to concentrate. The diet of Western societies has undergone radical change, mostly for the worse. We are much more prone to stress, as our lives speed up and our ability to feel in control diminishes.

Pollution is a factor too. It's all around us and affects our brain chemistry in subtle and alarming ways, making concentration harder.

But perhaps the most affecting parts of the book are those that focus on young people. As you've heard, the book opens with Hari's concern at the attention span of his godson, a young adult. He also spends time discussing the apparent epidemic of "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" – or ADHD – in young people and how we treat it.

The default response is to prescribe drugs. They're effective at curbing excessive behavior. But ADHD isn't actually a condition. It's a description of some symptoms. What lies behind those symptoms is often complex, and rooted in the families and societies in which the children are growing up. And it takes more than drugs to resolve it.

So how do we fix all this? Well, there are some causes for optimism. We do have experience of acting as societies to bring about change. We've banned CFCs, lead paint, and the unrestricted sale of cigarettes.

Could we also ban tech companies from owning our attention, and selling our data to the highest bidder? It seems like a long haul until we reach that point, but at least books like this one are prepared to promote the idea.

But there are things that we can all do right now to improve our own focus. In his conclusion, titled "Attention Rebellion," Hari lays out six of them. Some require seemingly drastic action. Hari himself takes half the year completely away from social media. Most of us would not be able to do that.

This individual effort is tough enough, but it's only part of the story. Hari identifies a phenomenon he calls "cruel optimism." This is when individuals are persuaded they have the power to change in their own hands, even when the forces preventing this are overwhelming.

For instance, many diet plans promote the idea that if you just take control of your eating, you'll lose weight.

But these plans ignore the ads for high-fat, high-sugar foods that contribute to the obesity epidemic. They're everywhere, often for the same foods that directly affect attention.

The effect of this is that people diet, and maybe succeed, for a short time. But then the weight goes back on, leading them to blame themselves for their lack of willpower.

So, the optimism caused by feeling that you're in control and empowered gives way to misery and self-blame. And that really is cruel optimism.

So, what do we think of "Stolen Focus"? Hari is a talented writer who isn't afraid to take on the big issues. But he also comes with some baggage, as you've already heard.

He tends to generalize from small samples of opinion, although those opinions are expert. He also has a politically left-leaning agenda. So it's important to weigh what he says carefully.

But he's clearly taken steps to address his past. The research behind the book is extensive, and he makes an effort to show that he's represented his interviewees fairly. Maybe everyone deserves a second chance.

The book is engaging. It mixes personal anecdote and observation skillfully, with plentiful research. There are lots of insightful snippets from interviews. And it will make you question just how much of your attention has been stolen, and by what.

Granted, it isn't groundbreaking. You'll have heard a lot of the issues it raises discussed elsewhere. But it brings them together deftly, and with passion. On balance, it's well worth a read.

"Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention – and How To Think Deeply Again" by Johann Hari is published by Crown Publishing Group.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.