You've got to fight for your right to focus.
January 3, 2022 8:45 AM   Subscribe

Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen. In an excerpt from an upcoming book, Johann Hari examines the societal influences that are eroding our ability to focus on . . . [excuse me my phone just buzzed] . . . one thing for a significant length of time.
posted by JanetLand (44 comments total) 44 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great summary of the issue that underlies so many of our - my - challenges today.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:53 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


I had a mobile phone stolen recently wirh some violence involved and the complete loss of all the blocked notification settings was the worst part.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:56 AM on January 3, 2022 [10 favorites]


I read this article yesterday and started feeling like I shouldn't be looking at a screen long enough to finish it.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:00 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]


it was over twenty years ago (pre-9/11), I was working on a multi-media project that aimed to clarify what was going on in the advertising wars at the time. The key "new" idea of that dot.com bubble moment was attention spans. It's not peoples' money they wanted, or their allegiance, or their love -- what they wanted (and it was getting harder and harder to get it) was simply/profoundly peoples' attention, and the longer they could hold it, the better they were doing. The money, the allegiance, the love -- all of that would follow.

And how here we are.
posted by philip-random at 9:03 AM on January 3, 2022 [12 favorites]


Okay, look, this might all be completely well researched and useful, but I'm going to wait a little bit to see how my colleagues respond because my time is precious, and this guy's history is not great. (If I'm going to read questionable science writing from a plagiarist, I enjoy Jonah Lehrer's prose.)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:05 AM on January 3, 2022 [48 favorites]


Have people forgotten Amusing Ourselves to Death already? It's been over thirty-five years, I expect it's slipped our minds.
posted by Grangousier at 9:06 AM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]


Given Hari's previous with plagiarism and spurious mental health claims it's worth taking a critical look, at least.
posted by ominous_paws at 9:06 AM on January 3, 2022 [22 favorites]


If you ask me, Graceland is the problem. The cheap thrills of rock-and-roll and the transistor radio are ruining the youths' appreciation for the more reserved arts, like memorizing rhyming poetry and making lace.

I'm sympathetic to much of this and enjoyed reading it. I'm also confident that I switch focus more times while walking down the sidewalk in any living city or talking to people in the halls at work than I do when wasting time on a smartphone. All those things are fun and often quite fulfilling. If you don't like it, that's fine. And it's fine to find alternatives. But, it's your crisis, not our crisis.
posted by eotvos at 9:07 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


Given Hari's reputation being problematic, to say the least, perhaps this FPP should be changed to note this?

If Johann Hari told me that 2 + 2 was 4, I'd want to double-check this.
posted by acb at 10:22 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]


Personally, I blame it on squirrels and cat memes.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:22 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


i recently got a smartphone instead of a fliptop because i had to - my landlord seems to think putting quarters in washers and dryers is a bad thing to do

i think it's a horrible annoyance - it dings several times a day to notify me of things i really don't care about, including spammers - it takes a menu dive to delete messages from said spammers - it's really hard to type on - aside from laundry, phone calls and maybe some messages, there's really nothing i want to use it for that i can't do better on a computer and a lot faster

there's a lot of people wandering around who aren't really where they are

i disagree with that guy from google - keeping my time on a phone to the barest necessary amount is my solution - it's like arguing that walking on the sidewalk doesn't change the cars - well, no, it doesn't but it makes me a lot less likely to get run over
posted by pyramid termite at 10:26 AM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


This is one of the reasons why I prefer a Ubuntu Touch phone over an Android:
it's a lot calmer. True, there are limitations*. But it's so much friendlier and less distracting. Also, no tracking.

*which I can live with, because I don't use Google-anything.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:39 AM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


This is obvious right? This is blindingly stupefying in its obviousness to anyone with a brain and a pulse?

There's so much of this shit now. Hordes of Serious Thinkers telling us stupid shit we already know. It's like Thomas Friedman and the New York Times lifestyle section had a baby and sent it to Oxbridge to study PPE. They complain about whatever gets them a book deal or bemoan the state of our world when ultimately the problem is fundamentally them. Johan Hari is the problem. The fake, impotent, deeply stupid state of those who will, in about 20 years time tell us this Trump fellow may need watching.

The world is fucking bursting with easy, obvious, rich stories for any Journalist with a milligram of talent and yet this shit is what we're served to read.

Tik-Tok and Youtube aren't stealing our attention, it's the only place to find someone who gives a shit about what they're talking about and that is the problem.
posted by fullerine at 10:44 AM on January 3, 2022 [29 favorites]


Your attention is your currency, literally.

Momo spells it out nicely....

posted by goalyeehah at 10:51 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


There's so much of this shit now. Hordes of Serious Thinkers telling us stupid shit we already know. It's like Thomas Friedman and the New York Times lifestyle section had a baby and sent it to Oxbridge to study PPE. They complain about whatever gets them a book deal or bemoan the state of our world when ultimately the problem is fundamentally them. Johan Hari is the problem. The fake, impotent, deeply stupid state of those who will, in about 20 years time tell us this Trump fellow may need watching.

I see you read The Economist. Seriously, there is a deep popularizer dilettante problem where clever writers blunder in, misunderstand and mischaracterize everything, excrete a think piece, and then wander off to cause more destruction elsewhere. I call it “The Malcolm Gladwell Problem.”

BlueBlueElectricBlue’s first link is really enlightening. This Hari guy is “inside the club,” and so gets innumerable chances to bloviate, despite the plagiarism.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:53 AM on January 3, 2022 [27 favorites]


(Literally LOL'ed to "The Malcolm Gladwell Problem")
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 11:10 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


Srsly, what are you so angry about? Regardless of the OP author's past (which I know nothing about), the excerpt from his book was interesting. Regardless of him not being the first to say these things, I found it a useful reminder and encouragement to pay (ahem) more explicit attention to this aspect of my life.

Because of his example, I am going to redouble my own efforts to set up systems to reduce my distractions. Because he makes the point about corporations and social systems being so much more important than individual 'willpower' in addressing this problem (which so many MeFites agree with on so many other topics!), I will pay even more attention to ways we can regulate these corporations and systems. Why on earth is any of that worthy of such derision? For those of you who are so infuriated by this article and who apparently don't need any of these reminders and encouragement, well, all I can say is good on ya'.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:47 AM on January 3, 2022 [10 favorites]


The average teenager now believes they can follow six forms of media at the same time.

When I was a teenager, I was very sure I could study just fine while listening to the radio - until I tried studying without listening to the radio. It made a huge difference.

This isn't really news, but it is a huge problem, and I don't think people complain when there are repeated articles on issues that are important to them. I think it's fine to have a bunch of articles on, for instance, climate change, even though we may know a lot about it. Crises merit repetition, and even assholes may have something worth saying. I was glad to read this article. It resonated with me. Thank you for posting.

(I really, really recommend the MetaTalk thread on being kinder to those brave enough to start threads on the blue. Or at least think twice about comments that seem to be there to prove you're just too darn smart or cool for this thread.)

On preview, like PhineasGage, I'm going to work more on reducing distractions and this article has given me further encouragement. I've already decided to cut online solitaire out of my life (I'm sure I waste hours every week). I had trouble reading this whole article without looking at something else. I need all the reminders to work on this that I can get.
posted by FencingGal at 11:52 AM on January 3, 2022 [12 favorites]


Look I swear I'll dip after this, but the author is a proven and self admitted plagiarist whose last major foray into mental health attempted to encourage people to wholesale ditch their meds cold turkey. Wanting this flagged in a thread is not the same as not being kind to the OP or proving you are smart or cool. It just really isn't.
posted by ominous_paws at 11:57 AM on January 3, 2022 [21 favorites]


Srsly, what are you so angry about? Regardless of the OP author's past (which I know nothing about), the excerpt from his book was interesting.

Well, if you read up on the author's past, you would realize why people have an issue with him, and why they don’t trust him as the messenger. As was pointed out, there are a number of discrepancies and questionable statements in the piece, not to mention a general focus around the experience of a middle aged man being generalized as "how the world works", which dismisses the needs of a diverse populace - and that makes the argument presented questionable. (And that's not getting into his outright misconduct.)

And yeah, this is a genuine problem as pointed out above, because these sorts of articles distort the issue,while whitewashing malefactors. Just because you find his writing interesting doesn't change his past misconduct.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:03 PM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]


Just because of his past misconduct, that does not make the article (and the larger topic) uninteresting.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:06 PM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]


And not to abuse the edit window, "whitewashing malefactors"? Did y'all read the article, or just see the byline and decide to vent? He explicitly cites not just personal behavior but the wide range of corporate and societal factors that are contributing to this problem.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:09 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Just because of his past misconduct, that does not make the article (and the larger topic) uninteresting.

No, what it does is make him an unreliable and questionable narrator, and given the degree of his past conduct - where he was telling people to go off their psychoactive medications cold turkey, an action that can cause a lot of harm - it should not be surprising that people are lothe to give him a second chance.

And yes, whitewashing is the right word here, because there is a whole system devoted to protecting the reputation of shallow "great thinkers" by not taking too hard a look at their behavior. Look - the fact that you found the piece "interesting" is not a rebuttal to the questions of validity and authorial reputation that have been raised, and to argue that it does is trying to dismiss the matter without actually addressing it. People do not trust this specific narrator for some very good reasons, and if you want to change that, you need to actually address those reasons.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:32 PM on January 3, 2022 [10 favorites]


Have people forgotten Amusing Ourselves to Death already? It's been over thirty-five years, I expect it's slipped our minds.

This is the comment I came to make.
posted by thoughtful_jester at 1:13 PM on January 3, 2022


It sounds like folks may have good reason to dislike the author, but the argument seems sound to me. Are are some better messengers?
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:28 PM on January 3, 2022


This is a very dubious piece by someone who not only has a poor reputation but is a notorious user of sock puppets. There are plenty of excellent books on the issues which our digital culture raises written by people with good reputations. Try Your Computer is on Fire for a very recent example or as other commentators have said, reread the excellent Amusing Ourselves to Death.

If you only have 2 minutes then watch this.

But don't be naive about this writer just because he is saying something you agree with.
posted by fallingbadgers at 1:28 PM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]


NoxAeternum (and on preview others) already did the heavy lifting here, I think, so I apologize if I'm being repetitive. This issue is central to my expertise, and it's just too hard to stay quiet. It matters who said a thing, and honestly in our current fluid information context it's never mattered more. Even if the message is helpful and important (this time). This is effectively a question of who we choose to platform. A broad and deep research shows that we cannot separate our processing of a message from the messenger. This makes it critical to push back on bad faith actors every single time. This writer is a scientific milkshake duck. Clicking the link, liking the content, posting the article strengthens his voice both socially and algorithmically. How many of us have liked an article by someone and gone into their back catalog to see what else they wrote? Are we cool with people doing that with Hari and reading his dangerously inaccurate work on mental health without any warning?

(Quick note - I absolutely in no way want to project any negativity on to the OP here! It's not their fault! It's an interesting topic! I'm sorry the guy turned out to be a wanker!)

While there are ways to be more polite about it, yeah, it's incredibly angry-making to see malefactors whitewashed. Because then when Hari's casual relationship with accuracy and expertise yields another harmful article in the future, all the people who liked this particular piece will be more willing to listen and give him the benefit of the doubt. That's how this works, with a million examples from Jordan Peterson to Joe Rogan. You could cast it as a form of "foot-in-door" compliance.

So I'm genuinely glad that there was space for this message to have positive effects in the short term for people here, but I'm deeply thankful that there are people who are diligent about flagging the messengers to curb the potential long term spillover effects, and I'll do what I can to join them every time.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:31 PM on January 3, 2022 [27 favorites]


Hi, I'm a person who read Lost Connections and Chasing the Scream while on antidepressants and stopped taking them because of his books. I don't regret it even a little bit. For all the rebuttal talk of "well duh, any good psychotherapist will do more than just prescribe pills" that has never been my experience. I'm in medicine, I know it's not a cabal of mustache twirling pharma-drones but it is full of busy people relying on the expertise of other busy people relying on the expertise of other busy people and Hari correctly points out that that's a lot of taking-for-granted-of-evidence. I agree his message can be dangerous, though, if you're looking to it for clear guidance or medical advice.

I got a lot out of his work and the plagiarism accusations, in case no one follows the links provided, are that he presented quotes as though they had been said to him when they hadn't. They were still things those people said, and he credited them for saying them.

Other recommendations if this piece resonated with you:
Oliver Burkeman, Tristan Harris, Cal Newport, Jaron Lanier have all been saying what this article says for a lot longer than Hari, and yes Amusing Ourselves to Death is the OG.

I will say, lest anyone thinks I'm just here to defend Hari, that I think it's painfully ironic that someone who challenged psychiatry the way he did has so completely bought into ob*sity epidemic rhetoric and the way he uses it in this article is gross.
posted by shesdeadimalive at 1:41 PM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]


Thank you to everyone adding context to the piece. Sad to hear about the author's bad reputation, but this is a subject I'd like to dive into, and book-length treatments seem particularly appropriate to the topic.

Added myself to the library waitlist for Amusing Ourselves to Death - I'd love to hear other recommendations if folks have them.
posted by bring a tuba to a knife fight at 4:29 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


Seconding the shout-out to Mefi’s own Oliver Burkeman (great new book out, 4,000 Weeks) and Cal Newport who’s got a couple of good books on focus (Deep Work and World Without Email)
posted by leotrotsky at 4:35 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Other recommendations if this piece resonated with you:
Oliver Burkeman, Tristan Harris, Cal Newport, Jaron Lanier have all been saying what this article says for a lot longer than Hari, and yes Amusing Ourselves to Death is the OG.

Oliver Burkeman is great and his prose is decent as well, which is a rarity in the productivity end of the self help world.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:41 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


I have read so many books on productivity, yet here I am on MetaFilter.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:42 PM on January 3, 2022 [17 favorites]


JanetLand - thank you for posting this article. While I understand the concerns some folks have raised around the piece’s author, it doesn’t negate the fact that the article is exploring territory that is fascinating (and relevant) to many.
posted by WaspEnterprises at 5:10 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


Wanting this flagged in a thread is not the same as not being kind to the OP or proving you are smart or cool. It just really isn't.

You're right, and I'm rethinking my comment a bit.
I think it's fine to flag it, but once I saw several of these "the author is terrible" comments, I just felt like that was taking over with a bunch of people jumping in to say he's awful, and do we really need to have that repeated and repeated? And it almost started to feel like a competition to trash the author, and I didn't want to have to read through all of that when the actual topic of the post is worth discussing. If part of the problem with the article is you've read this before, then we have all at this point read about why the author is obnoxious and we don't need to read twenty comments saying the same thing. Once it started to go in that direction, I just didn't want to read the thread anymore. Sometimes, it seems like there's a contest to see who can be the most cynical (or smart or cool), and I find that just fucking exhausting.

I do think it would be totally appropriate for people who take issue with the article itself to say so, but if people want to do that, I think it would make for a better thread if they brought up specifics about the article instead of "the author is shit, so let's just focus on that."

I also thought the story about the godson was moving (though maybe he made it up - who knows?), and I still think that when a topic is important, it's completely OK if a bunch of people write about it. But again, if you take issue with something specific in the article, let's hear it (not that my thoughts are the ones that matter - just trying to clarify where I'm coming from).
posted by FencingGal at 5:48 PM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


The book Indistractable was a huge help to me in learning how to manage the triggers, internal and external, that led to me losing focus and wasting time. I absolutely agree with this author’s point, that the way tech companies actively encourage a loss of focus and obsessive behavior needs to be treated as a societal problem and not something individuals could deal with if they just had a little more willpower. But although that would be nice, I don’t expect it to happen, and the tools in Indistractable made an immediate difference in my daily life. (I still reflexively try to look at MeFi or Ask MeFi several times a day, though, even though I’m trying to break myself of the habit and allotting a specific MeFi reading time for myself!)
posted by shirobara at 7:04 PM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]


The book Indistractable was a huge help to me in learning how to manage the triggers

I would think that the author of Indistractable, Nir Eyal, would have a unique perspective on this issue. His previous book, "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" is basically an instruction manual on how to incorporate all the attention-stealing tricks of the trade that exacerbate the obsessive behaviors addressed here.

From the book's description:

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?

Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model?a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again...


I wouldn't be surprised if Indistractable had some good advice, but it feels like the fox offering tips on how to protect your chicken coop.
posted by Umami Dearest at 9:32 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Other recommendations if this piece resonated with you:
Oliver Burkeman, Tristan Harris, Cal Newport, Jaron Lanier have all been saying what this article says for a lot longer than Hari, and yes Amusing Ourselves to Death is the OG.


Completely serious question, not trying to be a grump: Any recommendations that focus on distraction and limited attention due to current technology that aren't focused around (*checks book results on Google*) "productivity" or "study hacks"? Also not interested in "reasons to quit your social media networks now!" (Lanier) takes on the issue. Tristan Harris has a podcast which, ironically, I do not have the attention span for.

The article in the FP was interesting to me, because I, too, am almost-daily concerned with my decreasing attention span; whether that's due to nearly a decade of stark depression and anxiety that I'm finally seeing healing from, and/or possible undiagnosed ADHD. "I had feared my brain was breaking" hit hard. I like reading articles like this; they soothe my fears that it's not just me. I can live vicariously through the author spending a month or two unplugged in picturesque Cape Cod and go "ah, if only," knowing I'll never get the chance.

So. Any reading recommendations that feel like the article in the FP without the plagiarism, and without the suggestions on how to hack my brain to be better used for capitalism?
posted by lesser weasel at 10:40 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


With regards to specific critiques to the points in the article, shout out to ominous_paws for the twitter thread that did exactly that. Media clubbiness in the Guardian feels familiar to me via the ongoing TERFtitude of British media so to read what happened to the guy writing that thread, when he published his counterpoint to that infamous antidepressant article, only made me go, hmmm checks out.
posted by cendawanita at 1:22 AM on January 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


His previous book, "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" is basically an instruction manual on how to incorporate all the attention-stealing tricks of the trade that exacerbate the obsessive behaviors addressed here.

Yes, I quite enjoyed Hooked as well! I definitely see the sketchiness that comes from one author delivering both sides of the same coin. I read Hooked after reading Indistractable, and didn’t think it was inherently bad or manipulative, myself.

His premise was that these are the same techniques that big social media companies, game developers and others are already perfectly well aware of and using to get what they want out of people. For app developers or others trying to create things that have the potential to help their users — products that they would use themselves — it’s good to understand what gets people coming back, and why. Positive habits are the basis of a lot of great things in people’s lives, but it can be so terribly hard to get any habit rolling when, for the first several months, you might not see any real results. That’s where conscious attempts to get people coming back are most valuable, in my opinion. So I don’t see a contradiction, when both books are basically about attention and how it’s expended and focused.

For anyone interested in how attention has become a commodity, I recommend The Attention Merchants, by Tim Wu. It's all about the cycle of “look! a new way to get people’s attention => people get sick and tired of having their attention hijacked, and the previous techniques become useless” => “look! a new way to get people’s attention.”
posted by shirobara at 7:24 AM on January 4, 2022 [5 favorites]


I would like to see the OP and some others get together and make a better post that looks at this from other angles. I am 52 and have predictable thoughts about focus but would like to see my assumptions challenged. I can say that I have two smart teenagers who are quite online, and their ability to focus and dive deep into things is not as good as they think it is. But in today’s world, maybe that’s not a weakness - who knows?

Here’s a focus example: when Mrs. F and I see that someone watched a movie on a laptop while doing other stuff or live tweeting their viewing, and then posted on fanfare to say they didn’t think it was that good, we’re kind of appalled. Like, if you aren’t watching in a dark room quietly with no laptops or phones within 50 feet, why did you bother watching it? There’s real value in paying full attention to one thing at a time. Are you experiencing the thing, or are you just checking boxes and gathering data?
posted by freecellwizard at 8:49 AM on January 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


Are you experiencing the thing, or are you just checking boxes and gathering data?

It sounds like they're "consuming content."
posted by everdred at 12:53 PM on January 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


> There's so much of this shit now. Hordes of Serious Thinkers telling us stupid shit we already know.


> Seriously, there is a deep popularizer dilettante problem where clever writers blunder in, misunderstand and mischaracterize everything, excrete a think piece, and then wander off to cause more destruction elsewhere.

Your guys' points aren't wrong, but the urgency of the vitriol is as equally misplaced as their navel-gazing, as these pontificating poltroons of punditry have been around for as long as, say, Salon.com has, and so probably predate MetaFilter. If anything, you guys are doing the exact same thing they are, acting as if this is a recent phenomenon. Now that's meta!
posted by Apocryphon at 7:25 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


Anyone curious about the scientific basis for Hari's claims (spoiler: there isn't any) should check out this eye-opening thread from Matthew Sweet on Twitter:
I see his book as part of a long tradition that registers the pain of cultural and technological change - but over-reaches by telling you this is making you ill or stupid.

Does life seem very fast? Is there too much happening? In modernity, the answer to these questions is always yes.

Digital culture has produced its own problems, injustices and inequalities. I think Stolen Focus makes these harder to tackle because its author has cherry-picked and exaggerated to make his points.
Matthew Sweet has form when it comes to debunking third-rate research: it was he who pointed out the glaring factual errors in Naomi Wolf's latest book (previously on MeFi).
posted by verstegan at 1:19 PM on January 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


Thanks for that thread! I really think this tweet in particular is the nut graf: Moreover, the book uses this research to conflate two totally different phenomena: your individual ability to concentrate and the time a culture spends on a topic - best captured in that phrase "9-day wonder", which is old enough to be mentioned by Chaucer.

The second seems to be better supported and observed, we see it throughout this thread in the anecdotes. Certainly it's something when one of the authors of one of the studies Hari used disagreed with how their research has been presented in the book/excerpt.
posted by cendawanita at 6:55 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


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