If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Have you ever wondered why your ability to focus seems to be slipping away, no matter how hard you try to stay off your phone?
- Did you know that our global loss of concentration isn’t just a personal failure, but the result of powerful external forces designed to steal your attention?
- Are you curious about the hidden culprits behind your constant distraction and how you can finally start to reclaim your stolen focus?
Listen to Stolen Focus — Free Audiobook
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Key Takeaways from Stolen Focus
- Discover why spending less time at work might actually boost your overall productivity and help you regain your lost concentration.
- Understand 'The Great Acceleration' and why our 40,000-year-old brains are struggling to process the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of daily information.
- Learn how 1950s behavioral experiments on rats directly inspired the 'like' and 'share' buttons that program us for social media addiction.
- Find out how the invention of the 'infinite scroll' intentionally eliminated natural reading pauses to increase your daily screen time by 50 percent.
- Recognize that your dwindling focus is not a personal failure, but the deliberate result of Silicon Valley business models built to harvest your engagement.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Stolen Focus
Mind Map
Stolen Focus
The Attention Crisis
Shrinking Focus
The Great Acceleration
Addictive Tech Design
Behavioral Engineering
The Infinite Scroll
Engagement Economy
Algorithmic Outrage
Negativity Bias
Loss of Collective Focus
The Multitasking Myth
Single Processor Brain
Switch-Cost Effect
Cultivating Flow
State of Flow
Conditions for Flow
Systemic Solutions
Redesigning Tech
Workplace Reform
Actionable Advice
Mind Wandering
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 7
According to Sune Lehmann's analysis of Google Books, what is a key insight regarding our shrinking attention spans?
Stolen Focus — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: It’s not just you – everybody is finding it hard to concentrate.
Chapter 3: Apps and digital platforms are addictive on purpose, not by mistake.
Chapter 4: Algorithms favor outrage instead of unity.
Chapter 5: Stop multitasking – restoring focus means finding flow.
Chapter 6: We really can reclaim our attention.
Stolen Focus Summary & Overview
Stolen Focus (2022) begins with author Johann Hari experiencing a common problem: his attention span is diminishing. He can’t seem to focus on much outside of Twitter and online news. Over three years, Hari tries to identify the root causes of this problem. He uncovers a collective attention crisis that’s affecting the entire globe. From social media to the culture of productivity, Hari identifies the culprits behind our stolen focus – and wonders if, and how, we can claim it back.
Who Should Listen to Stolen Focus?
- Anyone who feels like they just can’t concentrate the way they used to
- Multitaskers with brimming to-do lists who still feel like they don’t get much done
- Anyone scrolling through social media while they’re reading this!
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