Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus embraces a subject that is difficult, yet imperative to discuss in this high-tech era. Beginning with his personal experience, Johann then looks at the bigger picture of why we can’t focus and the wide-reaching implications of our inability to pay attention.
Johann tackles this subject with impressive honesty and thoroughness. This is a book that you must read and think deeply about for yourself. It’s complex, which is why I’m recommending it to you, but there was one theme that stood out to me – the need to read the printed word.
While investigating the things that sap our energy and steal our ability to focus, Johann came to understand the significance of slowing down in order to think more clearly and deeply. He realised that sustained, focused reading was a place where we could all begin achieving this.
Our frequent use of digital devices has taught us to speed up with almost everything, including reading. The skim reading that is common when reading from screens causes us to miss details, connections and depth.
Johann [Hari] came to understand the significance of slowing down in order to think more clearly and deeply.
Reading a printed book does much more than convey a story or information. When the content is meaningful to us, a book provides us with the opportunity to focus on one task for a long time. This kind of focus, where everything else around us disappears, is called ‘flow state’. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states this “is the deepest form of focus and attention that we know of ”. This is where deep thinking and problem solving take place.
Additionally, reading print on paper is better for our memory as it avoids the constant switching from task to task and moving focus that happens when reading on devices.
Another important factor Johann covers is that to be valuable, reading needs to challenge us – just a little bit. If something is too easy, we go into autopilot and don’t take much notice of it. If something is too hard, we get anxious, which impedes our focus. Reading the printed word challenges us to become better thinkers and communicators.
Johann describes, with honesty, the shallowness of much of the content in the digital world. He points out the world is complex and takes time to understand and communicate about – something that can’t usually be done in 280 characters or a single perfect photo. Sustained, focused reading allows us to slow down, read carefully and think deeply, before communicating thoughtfully with empathy. Johann Hari believes empathy is what enables our society to move forward. Interestingly, Professor Raymond Mar discovered that reading, particularly reading fiction, makes us more empathetic. He also found that children whose parents read to them from a young age were better able to read other people’s emotions.
Finally, mind-wandering expands the value of slow, focused reading. Psychologist Jonathan Smallwood explains that when we are reading a book, we think about how the words relate to our life and previous chapters, and what content might be ahead. A phrase may trigger a memory from childhood or something a friend said earlier that day. This mind-wandering isn’t a lack of focus, it’s an expansion of focus. Slowing down to take in this extra information sparks creativity and innovation, encourages broader thinking and connection-making, and helps us make sense of the world.
Technology can make some things easier, but as Johann Hari asks, at what cost? Stolen Focus also covers other focus stealers like lack of sleep, stress, exhaustion, denatured food and pollution. Johann Hari believes getting back to our ability to focus allows us to think deeply and creatively and solve problems: not with reactionary or stop-gap measures, but with end-to-end solutions that make a real, positive difference to all of humanity. Slowing down and choosing to read the printed word is just the beginning.
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