Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention by Johann Hari

BATB score: 8.5/10 👀

Best for: raise your hand if you agree with any part this statement: I, personally, feel that my attention span is fleeting, that I have difficulty concentrating, that my relationship with social media is toxic, and that my wrists ache from holding a mobile phone up too long. 🙆🏻‍♀️

Best to: the book acknowledges that we all have shorter attention spans and more difficulty with concentration; the book then explores twelve potential causes to why this is so

BATB lingering thought: from working at Google and Facebook, BATB loved “Cause #6 The Rise of Technology That Can Track and Manipulate You” fake news, clickbait ads, captivating newsfeeds, tabloid content is not a future we are proud of

Best as: why is it our fault - a lack of self-control - when social media was made by the best masterminds, well-paid engineers, smartest brains in infinite newsfeed doom scrolling algorithm intended to lock us in; it’s like you build a brilliant booby trap and I fall into the trap and it is now my fault - a lack of self-control and not being aware enough to outsmart the booby trap?!?

Best for: “A student would switch task once every sixty-five seconds. The median is nineteen seconds.”

“It’s when you set aside your distractions that you begin to see what you were distracting yourself from.”

“Democracy requires the ability of a population to pay attention long enough to identify real problems, distinguish them from fantasies, come up with solutions, and hold their leaders accountable if they fail to deliver them.”

“The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world’s attention burns.”