Stolen Focus - Revision history

Wikilah admin at 14:09, 2 February 2026

2026-02-02T14:09:24Z

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	{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus''}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus''}}
	{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari}}


	{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}		{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}

Wikilah admin at 06:47, 17 January 2026

2026-01-17T06:47:29Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:47, 17 January 2026
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	== Introduction ==		== Introduction ==

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	It also won Porchlight’s 2022 Business Book of the Year and appeared on the {{Tooltip\|Financial Times}} “Best books of 2022: Politics.” <ref name="Porchlight2023" /><ref name="FT20221124" />		It also won Porchlight’s 2022 Business Book of the Year and appeared on the {{Tooltip\|Financial Times}} “Best books of 2022: Politics.” <ref name="Porchlight2023" /><ref name="FT20221124" />

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	== Chapters ==		== Chapters ==

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	''—Note: The above summary follows the {{Tooltip\|Bloomsbury}} hardback edition (2022; ISBN 978-1-5266-2022-4).''<ref name="BloomsburyHB2022" /><ref name="PagePlaceToC" />		''—Note: The above summary follows the {{Tooltip\|Bloomsbury}} hardback edition (2022; ISBN 978-1-5266-2022-4).''<ref name="BloomsburyHB2022" /><ref name="PagePlaceToC" />

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	== Background & reception ==		== Background & reception ==

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	🌍 '''Impact & adoption'''. University libraries and courses have incorporated the book into attention-economy reading lists, such as {{Tooltip\|Leiden University Libraries}}’ 2023 list “Stolen Focus: Our Brains Online.” <ref name="Leiden20230922" /> Public broadcasters featured the author to discuss the book’s arguments, including {{Tooltip\|ABC Radio National}}’s ''{{Tooltip\|Late Night Live}}'' (originally aired 27 January 2022; rebroadcast December 2022). <ref name="ABCLNL20220127" /><ref name="ABCLNL20221219" />		🌍 '''Impact & adoption'''. University libraries and courses have incorporated the book into attention-economy reading lists, such as {{Tooltip\|Leiden University Libraries}}’ 2023 list “Stolen Focus: Our Brains Online.” <ref name="Leiden20230922" /> Public broadcasters featured the author to discuss the book’s arguments, including {{Tooltip\|ABC Radio National}}’s ''{{Tooltip\|Late Night Live}}'' (originally aired 27 January 2022; rebroadcast December 2022). <ref name="ABCLNL20220127" /><ref name="ABCLNL20221219" />

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	== Related content & more ==
			== See also ==

	=== YouTube videos ===
	{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus''}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus''}}
	{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari}}

	=== CapSach articles ===
	{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}		{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}
	{{The One Thing/thumbnail}}		{{The One Thing/thumbnail}}
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	{{The Magic of Thinking Big/thumbnail}}		{{The Magic of Thinking Big/thumbnail}}
	{{The Compound Effect/thumbnail}}		{{The Compound Effect/thumbnail}}
	{{~~CS/Self-improvement~~ book summaries/thumbnail}}		{{book summaries/thumbnail}}
	{{Insert before References}}		{{Insert before References}}

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	== References ==		== References ==
	{{reflist\|30em		{{reflist\|30em
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	<ref name="WSJ20200526">{{cite news \|title=Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive \|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499 \|work=The Wall Street Journal \|date=26 May 2020 \|access-date=5 November 2025}}</ref>		<ref name="WSJ20200526">{{cite news \|title=Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive \|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499 \|work=The Wall Street Journal \|date=26 May 2020 \|access-date=5 November 2025}}</ref>
	<ref name="RightDisconnect">{{cite news \|title=French workers win legal right to avoid checking work email out-of-hours \|url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/dec/31/french-workers-win-legal-right-to-avoid-checking-work-email-out-of-hours \|work=The Guardian \|date=31 December 2016 \|access-date=5 November 2025}}</ref>		<ref name="RightDisconnect">{{cite news \|title=French workers win legal right to avoid checking work email out-of-hours \|url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/dec/31/french-workers-win-legal-right-to-avoid-checking-work-email-out-of-hours \|work=The Guardian \|date=31 December 2016 \|access-date=5 November 2025}}</ref>
	<ref name="MSJapan" />
	}}		}}

	[[Category:Self-improvement books]]
	[[Category:CS articles]]
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Wikilah admin at 12:49, 16 November 2025

2025-11-16T12:49:47Z

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Wikilah admin at 11:26, 6 November 2025

2025-11-06T11:26:44Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:26, 6 November 2025
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	=== YouTube videos ===		=== YouTube videos ===
	{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus'' ~~(80 min)~~}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| BFpVzXmGeTE \| Andrew Yang interviews Johann Hari on ''Stolen Focus''}}
	{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari ~~(18 min)~~}}		{{Youtube thumbnail \| VsrM-j2ksaY \| Amanpour & Company interview with Johann Hari}}

	=== CapSach articles ===		=== CapSach articles ===

Wikilah admin at 16:06, 5 November 2025

2025-11-05T16:06:28Z

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Wikilah admin at 15:49, 5 November 2025

2025-11-05T15:49:53Z

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Wikilah admin at 15:49, 5 November 2025

2025-11-05T15:49:30Z

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Wikilah admin at 15:53, 4 November 2025

2025-11-04T15:53:31Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:53, 4 November 2025
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	=== CapSach articles ===		=== CapSach articles ===
	{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}		{{Digital Minimalism/thumbnail}}
	{{Four Thousand Weeks/thumbnail}}
	{{The One Thing/thumbnail}}		{{The One Thing/thumbnail}}
	{{Make Your Bed/thumbnail}}		{{Make Your Bed/thumbnail}}

Wikilah admin at 15:44, 4 November 2025

2025-11-04T15:44:09Z

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Wikilah admin at 08:48, 4 November 2025

2025-11-04T08:48:51Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:48, 4 November 2025
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	🚨 '''10 – Cause Eight: The Surge in Stress and How It Is Triggering Vigilance.''' When I first fled to Provincetown, I blamed phones; then I followed pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris into Bayview–Hunters Point in San Francisco and watched how chronic stress scrambles attention long before a screen lights up. Her clinic’s work on Adverse Childhood Experiences (the ACE study and its successors) showed how repeated threat cues—violence nearby, unstable housing, food insecurity—keep the stress system stuck on “high,” and a mind scanning for danger cannot settle on a page or a task. Neuroscientists call it hypervigilance: the brain’s alarm circuits hog processing power and the prefrontal systems for planning and focus sputter. I saw the same pattern in adults living with precarity—shift‑work schedules, debt, no paid sick time—whose nights were light and fractured and whose days were threaded with micro‑threats. Add sleep loss to the mix and attention thins further; the tired brain seeks quick hits and drifts toward feeds that promise stimulation without effort. In that state, advice to “concentrate harder” feels like a taunt; what helps is safety, rest, and predictability strong enough to let the watchful parts of the mind stand down. Programs that widen the margin—stable income, healthcare access, later school start times, quieter nights—look like social policy but land as cognitive relief. The chapter reframes distraction as a stress response: people don’t lose focus because they are weak; they lose it because their bodies are busy guarding against threat. Reduce ambient threat and attention returns because vigilance no longer monopolizes the system. To pay attention in normal ways, you need to feel safe.		🚨 '''10 – Cause Eight: The Surge in Stress and How It Is Triggering Vigilance.''' When I first fled to Provincetown, I blamed phones; then I followed pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris into Bayview–Hunters Point in San Francisco and watched how chronic stress scrambles attention long before a screen lights up. Her clinic’s work on Adverse Childhood Experiences (the ACE study and its successors) showed how repeated threat cues—violence nearby, unstable housing, food insecurity—keep the stress system stuck on “high,” and a mind scanning for danger cannot settle on a page or a task. Neuroscientists call it hypervigilance: the brain’s alarm circuits hog processing power and the prefrontal systems for planning and focus sputter. I saw the same pattern in adults living with precarity—shift‑work schedules, debt, no paid sick time—whose nights were light and fractured and whose days were threaded with micro‑threats. Add sleep loss to the mix and attention thins further; the tired brain seeks quick hits and drifts toward feeds that promise stimulation without effort. In that state, advice to “concentrate harder” feels like a taunt; what helps is safety, rest, and predictability strong enough to let the watchful parts of the mind stand down. Programs that widen the margin—stable income, healthcare access, later school start times, quieter nights—look like social policy but land as cognitive relief. The chapter reframes distraction as a stress response: people don’t lose focus because they are weak; they lose it because their bodies are busy guarding against threat. Reduce ambient threat and attention returns because vigilance no longer monopolizes the system. To pay attention in normal ways, you need to feel safe.

			🧭 '''11 – The Places That Figured Out How to Reverse the Surge in Speed and Exhaustion.''' In New Zealand, Andrew Barnes tested a two‑month four‑day week at Perpetual Guardian, a wills‑and‑trusts firm with over twelve offices and some 240 staff, and asked University of Auckland researchers (including Dr Helen Delaney) to track outcomes; monitored computer use showed social‑media time fell by 35%, engagement and teamwork rose by 30–40%, and reported stress dropped by 15%, so the policy was made permanent. In the Rotorua office workers used a simple pot of desk flags to signal “do not disturb,” while the extra free day let parents reclaim time with their kids and arrive at work fresher. Comparable experiments recur across history and continents: W. G. Kellogg’s 1920s six‑hour shifts cut accidents by 41%; Microsoft Japan’s 2019 four‑day week reported a 40% productivity lift; a Gothenburg care home’s six‑hour day reduced stress and sick leave; and a Toyota service unit trimmed two hours a day while producing 114% of prior output and lifting profits 25%. Ten thousand miles away in Paris, a structural fix took another form: France’s 2016 “right to disconnect” law requires firms with 50+ employees to negotiate out‑of‑hours contact rules, and a court ordered Rentokil to pay €60,000 for after‑hours email demands. These case studies show that reducing speed and restoring boundaries are not perks but levers that change behaviour in offices and homes. The mechanism is straightforward: rest and uninterrupted time expand attentional bandwidth, while collective rules (shorter weeks, off‑hours firewalls) prevent constant vigilance and context‑switching from shredding focus. Together they replace exhaustion as a status symbol with recovery as a productivity system. All this suggests that when people work less, their focus significantly improves.
	🧭 '''11 – The Places That Figured Out How to Reverse the Surge in Speed and Exhaustion.'''

			🌫️ '''12 – Causes Nine and Ten: Our Deteriorating Diets and Rising Pollution.''' Summers on a Swiss mountain farm, eating food grown and cooked by his grandparents, contrasted with a childhood of microwave pizza and Kinder chocolate, frame the chapter’s question: what has ultra‑processed fuel done to attention? In London, nutritionist Dale Pinnock links modern breakfasts of cereal and white toast (often chased with coffee) to rapid blood‑sugar spikes and crashes that yield “brain fog,” a pattern national health guidance also warns about; Dutch elimination‑diet trials found most children who cut dyes and preservatives improved focus, with one study reporting over 70% responding and an average 50% gain. In New York, psychiatrist Drew Ramsey stresses whole foods (e.g., omega‑3‑rich fish) over supplements, while Boston’s Uma Naidoo points to vending‑machine calories displacing nutrients in US schools; related work summarised by Joel Nigg notes a “sea change” in evidence tying diet quality to attention. Then the lens widens to pollution: France’s Barbara Demeneix warns that endocrine‑disrupting chemicals distort brain development, and Lancaster’s Barbara Maher describes city air as a “chronic insult” that inflames neural tissue; studies link proximity to major roads with higher dementia risk, and MRI data from Mexico City show reduced brain volumes in exposed children, while Barcelona’s Jordi Sunyer associates higher pollution with poorer classroom attention. The lead‑gasoline saga, traced with Bruce Lanphear in Rochester, shows stakes and solutions: in the 1970s Americans carried ~600× pre‑industrial lead; an estimated 68 million US children were exposed between 1927 and 1987; exposure doubled ADHD risk, and combined with maternal smoking increased odds eightfold—until citizen pressure won bans, blood lead fell from ~15 to 0.85 μg/dL, and preschool IQ rose by about five points. The through‑line is metabolic and toxicological: ultra‑processed diets whip energy and starve the brain of building blocks, while pollutants inflame and miswire systems that sustain attention. Because these are engineered environments, progress hinges on structural change—food systems, chemical regulation, and urban air—alongside personal choices. It’s proof that it’s possible to make dramatic progress on fighting an attention‑killer.
	🌫️ '''12 – Causes Nine and Ten: Our Deteriorating Diets and Rising Pollution.'''

			🧩 '''13 – Cause Eleven: The Rise of ADHD and How We Are Responding to It.''' In classrooms about fifteen years ago, teachers reported restlessness spreading; between 2003 and 2011 US ADHD diagnoses rose 43% (55% among girls), reaching 13% of adolescents, while Britain saw a roughly hundred‑fold increase since the late 1980s and a stimulant market now worth at least $10 billion. The medical story evolved too: the 1952 DSM had no such disorder, a narrow version appeared in 1968, and debate has intensified as diagnoses swelled. At Tufts, veterinary behaviourist Nicholas Dodman shows the limits of pharmacology by extension: he prescribes stimulants for “hyperactive” pets and sedatives for pacing zoo animals, yet calls this a Band‑Aid for “frustrated biological objectives” created by captivity. In Lincoln, UK, child psychiatrist Sami Timimi re‑examines cases like “Michael,” looking beyond labels to stressors at home and school rather than defaulting to pills; in Oakland, psychologist Jay Joseph explains why twin studies can inflate genetic estimates by ignoring more‑similar environments for identical twins. Portland’s Joel Nigg, at Oregon Health & Science University, and geneticist James Li add nuance: SNP‑based methods attribute about 20–30% of attention variance to common genes, but gene expression shifts with experience—so context is the trigger that turns risk into impairment. The pattern is not denial but reframing: biology contributes, yet environments—sleep, stress, diet, movement, teaching and screens—often dominate outcomes, and medication without upstream fixes can become chemical coping. The mechanism therefore blends susceptibility with exposure: genes load the dice, but modern conditions throw them. ‘We can treat these kids – but sooner or later, we need to figure out why is this happening.’
	🧩 '''13 – Cause Eleven: The Rise of ADHD and How We Are Responding to It.'''

			🧒 '''14 – Cause Twelve: The Confinement of Our Children, Both Physically and Psychologically.''' Dusk in a coffee‑growing village in Cauca, Colombia, shows children roaming and inventing games without adults; by contrast, in the United States only about 10% of children regularly played freely outdoors by 2003, and merely 73% of elementary schools now offer any recess. Lenore Skenazy’s son, Izzy, planned a solo route from Bloomingdale’s and rode the New York subway home; the media dubbed her “America’s worst mom,” even though children are statistically far more likely to be struck by lightning than abducted by a stranger. Skenazy co‑founded Let Grow to change behaviour at scale: at Roanoke Avenue Elementary on Long Island, Global Play Day filled rooms with boxes, Lego and scrap; a student known as L. B. started building a life‑size wagon, then an amphibious version, reading manuals, scrounging parts and working for hours—his teacher Donna and colleague Gary Karlson watched confidence, reading and leadership soar. The science behind this is broad: Peter Gray documents free play as training for self‑direction; Isabel Behncke shows it builds creativity, social bonds and “aliveness”; Jonathan Haidt links play deprivation to rising youth anxiety; and Ed Deci and Richard Ryan’s work on intrinsic motivation explains why adult‑directed activities can drain attention while self‑chosen tasks sustain it. Confinement also reduces movement, and exercise robustly improves executive function and self‑regulation in developing brains; when adults script every minute, children lose practice in managing risk, negotiating rules and directing their own focus. The mechanism is developmental: free, unsupervised play is the rehearsal space where attention, agency and resilience are wired; surveillance, over‑structuring and test‑driven schooling crowd out that wiring. The primary technology for learning is play.
	🧒 '''14 – Cause Twelve: The Confinement of Our Children, Both Physically and Psychologically.'''

	== Background & reception ==		== Background & reception ==