Book Club: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Do you have the feeling that your memory is playing tricks on you? That you start a task without remembering why you're doing it? Are you able to concentrate for long periods of time? 

Are you addicted to your screens? Think about it: how much time do you spend on them every day? Is your lack of concentration and memory linked to your consumption of blue light? 

Johann Hari's Stolen Focus is about all of this. Through a 3-month screen-free experiment followed by in-depth research, he explains why our attention literally slips through our fingers.

What exactly is at stake? 

The premise of Hari's research begins with a trip. He organizes a trip with his nephew to get him out of a bad situation and away from his computer screen. Once there, he realizes that tourists don't look up from their phones, and neither does his nephew. Instead of enjoying the moment, they capture in photos the very things they've traveled many miles to see... only to see them with their own eyes. The famous phenomenon of people recording shows... 

He then makes it very clear that he wants to reduce his screen consumption at all costs, in order to enjoy life to the full, and above all, to regain his ability to concentrate. It all starts there. 

Creativity, an increasingly rare commodity

Winston became interested in the subject because Hari suggests that we're losing an enormous sandbox in which to play, create and abandon ourselves by limiting the time allocated to wondering, but also to doing nothing and letting our thoughts roam. We sacrifice depth in many areas of our lives. Depth takes time, and with popcorn consumption and the sensationalism of headlines and pretty pictures, we're losing our ability to concentrate for long periods of time.

"Let your mind wander”

With a little hindsight, we can see that this isn't untrue, that we often come up with great ideas when we least expect it. That's why we always encourage creative people to take a walk when the brain is off, or to leave the screen and scribble in a notebook, and above all why we often get our best ideas while out for a drive or in the shower. Because we give ourselves the right to think. With fast-moving information technologies, we leave ourselves less and less time to make connections between our learning. Screens and various notifications that interfere with our concentration are thought to be one of the causes of this lack of creativity. 

Where does this lack of attention come from?

The author notes that we always blame ourselves for a lack of concentration, when the problem is much bigger than ourselves.

Hari draws on his research from around the world to meet the experts he needs to get to the bottom of his questions. He comes to discover that digital platforms, which are probably the interfaces we spend the most time on, are actually designed to waste our time. It's true that every social network makes money for every second invested by its users on the platform.

Unsociable humans? 

Do you still read real paper books? In our case, asking the question is answering it, since we are writing a bookclub review. The fact that we're reading fewer and fewer books means we're less and less empathetic. When we read, we imagine and project ourselves into the lives and emotions of several characters in order to understand and experience the story in our own way. We lose this notion of empathy around an external story or plot when we read short stories. "As you read fiction, you see inside other people's experiences". 

We are a marketing agency that uses social media without overusing it. Far from suggesting that these platforms are all bad. On the other hand, it's an interesting vision to understand the dynamics of the social angle. Hari meets a number of specialists who explain how social media are driving us away from each other, rather than the other way round. The more we isolate ourselves behind a screen, the less we learn and open up to the world. So it's interesting to immerse ourselves in a social and ethical reflection on our consumption of fast-moving information, and above all to become aware of our actions.

This book is a social awakening and, above all, a tool that will enable you to make an assessment of your use of screens, and to form your own ideas on how to reduce your use of them if you find that your daily routine is getting out of hand. It's a serious read, full of personal observations that will sit well on your bedside table, but can be a little stressful before bedtime.