Stolen Focus

This book is a must-read. It covers many reasons why our attention spans have been degrading over the last few decades, a substantial chunk of which is due to corporate social media (personally, I think the jury is still out on whether other forms of social media can be beneficial) If you care about your personal mental health, or global geopolitics, or climate change, I'd strongly suggest reading it. The book covers a lot of ground, includes a lot of research, and has an excellent systemic analysis (instead of the usual individualistic focus of self-help books). It's also an enjoyable read.

I was expecting Stolen Focus to predominantly focus on digital focus, and the negative impacts big tech companies have on our attention. That’s definitely a good portion of this book, which was incredibly insightful, but there are many more concepts tied to focus I had never considered which were equally amazing to learn about.

Diet, environment, social factors, economy, politics, and more. Stolen Focus ties relations between the focus crisis to the climate crisis, the obesity crisis, the mental health crisis, and much more. These are all interlinked problems which feed on each other in disastrous ways.

This book is not a “how to reclaim your focus” guide, it’s rather a thorough investigation into how and why focus is so important, and what has happened to it. It gives you the context and understanding required to not just fight back personally, but socially.

Writing-wise, I was thoroughly impressed with the structure of the book. I was consistently captured by the book (ironically) as the author had a great balance of personal anecdotes, storytelling, interviews with dozens of experts, scientific research, and more. I felt the balance of facts, evidence, and story were perfect.

Great read, a must read if we are to reclaim some sanity in this insane world.