Stolen Focus is a well-intentioned book about a problem that many people struggle with: a lack of focus. Hari posits the comforting thesis that this focus is being “stolen” rather than being lost – it is not our fault, rather it is a systemic issue propagated by big tech.
I think there are valuable insights in the book and I find myself agreeing with many of the individual things he writes. But I just don’t think he makes a solid enough case.
Hari commits one of Nietzche’s “great errors”: confusing cause and consequence (or at the very least being sloppy with cause and consequence). Each chapter title is styled as a “cause” for the loss in attention but it’s hard to argue that all the factors are causal, particularly the chapters regarding Sleep, Reading and Dieting – these seem more like consequences or corollaries of a loss in attention. While this criticism may sound like semantic nitpicking, I think it matters quite a lot: by presenting so many “causes”, Hari creates artificial strength for an argument, when really he has a scattering of circumstantial evidence.
Perhaps more fundamentally (to Hari’s credit, he points this out), the structure of the argument is weird: he admits that there is no actual evidence that our attention is getting worse, but instead suggests that it is reasonable to assume so given that a lot of factors known to diminish attention are increasing. As I argued above, it’s not obvious that these factors are indeed “known” to causally diminish attention, and even if they did, whether that is suitable justification for the book’s core thesis. So what is left behind? A weird list of “bad things” that are happening to us, all loosely linked to the subject of attention, focus and productivity. The somewhat bizarre chapter on Diet is a case in point. Though I have come to similar conclusions to him (broadly speaking: processed foods are bad), he presents weak evidence from cherry-picked “experts” (a nutritionist rather than a dietician) and makes hopelessly unsubstantiated claims regarding their effect on attention. I think we have a good reason to be especially sceptical given the author’s known history of being loose with facts.
The best-argued parts of the book were those on the incentive structures of Big Tech (well covered in Netflix’s The Social Dilemma) and the debate on systemic vs individual responsibility. Hari is very much of the opinion that it is a systemic issue and is vicious towards people like Nir Eyal (author of Hooked) who emphasise the role of personal responsibility. I see some amusing hypocrisy here: he is judgmental of Eyal, a product of the system, because Eyal is judgmental of individuals, products of the system. That aside, I do land on the side of Eyal – I think individual responsibility is quite important (though it’s not a true dichotomy) but this might say more about my Darwinian worldview than anything else. But since Hari talks so much about incentive structures, I guess it’s worth considering his own incentive structures. Which is going to be more popular, a book that says “it’s your fault” or a book that says “it’s not your fault”?
I was quite open-minded to Hari’s suggested solutions: they are intriguing and radical. For example, turning social media into a public utility (a la BBC) and banning the business model of data-driven advertising, such that Facebook would become a subscription product. In theory, this would align incentives since the platform would be trying to create value for users. I don’t think these solutions are “hopelessly naive” but I do think they ignore a relatively important fact: Big Tech has created a lot of value. Perhaps giving up personal data (and even some focus?) is a fair trade in exchange for the marvels of free software like Google Maps and Gmail. Nevertheless, this part of the book highlighted to me how cynical and fatalist I had previously been:
Often, when a person argues for social change, they are called ‘naive’. The exact opposite is the truth. It’s naive to think we as citizens can do nothing, and leave the powerful to do whatever they want, and somehow our attention will survive. There’s nothing naive about believing that concerted democratic campaigning can change the world. As the anthropologist Margaret Mead said, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Overall the book is a well-meaning and accessible review of some basic ideas surrounding attention, like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Hari outlines several areas of our lives that we should probably pay attention to (diet, sleep, stress, air pollution, reading, mind-wandering etc), discusses some valid criticisms of Big Tech, and proposes some bold solutions. But as for the core thesis, the book falls flat.