Stolen Focus

GRAIN O' SALT: PEOPLE ARE TELLING ME THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK IS A PLAGIARIST AND A BAD-SCIENCE PERSON WITH A POOR UNDERSTANDING OF HISTORY.

Book recommendation! Even though I'm only one-third through it: Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari.

It starts, of course, with smartphones, but it goes much further, into the limits of the human brain's ability to take in information, a limit we're now reaching. He is very clear right from the start that inattention and "addiction" to social media are not strictly personal failings, but a systemic problem that we as individuals can't entirely do away with.

He tries. He describes a three-month complete internet/phone fast, acknowledging that it's not something most people can afford to do, and describes the wonderful results: deep reading, deep thinking, deep sleep, restored creativity. From hints at the beginning, I'm pretty sure his "cure" won't turn out to have been permanent. Yet it sounds like paradise.

I'm listening to the audiobook, read by the author in his very listenable un-posh London accent. It's good. I'm hoping there's enough here to guide me to at least some recovery of my ability to read, think, and create.