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From Australia

MickyC

Good, yet ideologically flawed book

Reviewed in Australia on 14 February 2022

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Overall I'd say this is a very good book, but too often the author lets his political ideology get in the way.

When discussing negative aspects of internet chat / Facebook groups, his examples thereof is the alleged rise of white nationalism. White nationalists haven't have killed as many people in the US in the last decade as get shot in Chicago on a pedestrian week.

It's a considerable yet consistent failure of progressives. They focus their attentions on make believe problems whilst ignoring real ones. Imaginary white nationalists are a growing concern yet liberals rioting, mass looting, burning down city blocks doesn't even rate a mention.

This is legitimately because they don't see that as being bad. Not even close to bad. These criminal activities are so mundane to progressives it's akin to watching someone get on a bus. It's mundane, or not even worthy of noticing (let alone noting), as those people wreaking that havoc, destroying those buildings and businesses and beating up those pensioners are on my team, they're the "good guys"; so it's like they have an invisibility cloak on. Whereas the "other guys" simply raising objections to third trimester abortions or stating that males aren't women for example, are apparently fascists on the verge of dismantling democracy for merely voicing an opinion or objective truth.

Another example the author uses is about the possible negative aspects of standardised testing in US schools. It's prioritised rote learning over free play he says and he likely has a valid point.

Yet again however, the author cannot help himself. How so? He pins this on George Bush's No Child Left Behind program.

I'm not defending Bush or the program, I know nothing of the latter and hold no great affection for the former. I'm sure it's a horrible end result wrapped up with good intention. But surely you're either wilfully ignorant or have deployed the progressive invisibility cloak yet again here if you believe schools are influenced by a long disposed conservative.

Schools, school teachers, school administrations, school curriculum, school boards and school unions are overwhelmingly liberal enclaves. Top to bottom, the entire schooling system is lousy with liberals. Well over 80% of those bodies are occupied by progressive liberals. Yet the example he plucks from his pocket for the woes of school education structure and how this damages children's development manages to lay the blame with a conservative.

In the book he makes a very strong argument for allowing and encouraging children to engage in unsupervised free-play. In it he tells of parents who agree unsupervised free-play sounds great, that they did it themselves as children and have the most fondest memories of it. Yet when challenged if they'll allow their children to do what they themselves did (and loved), they promptly do nothing of the sort.

His assertion that education problems are based on conservatives that have essentially zero say in education in the US makes those parent's decision making prowess seem Einsteinian in comparison.

Look at the school Covid lunacy in progressive hotbed states in the US. Kids masked eight hours a day, behind plastic screens, sitting distanced from each other out in the freezing cold during winter. Meanwhile in the red states, which are apparently on the precipice owing to Facebook not censoring their chats, children are engaging in exactly the activities he's advocating for in his book. They're outside, playing sport, living normal lives and not dying of Covid.

In the scheme of his book, these gripes I have with his ideological blindness are not large as a percentage of the content. But it is consistent enough and annoying enough in it's hypocrisy to detract from an otherwise very good book.

7 people found this helpful

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From other countries

SVB

The first half is great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2022

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The first half of the book is centred around social media and phone use, which really is incredibly interesting and inspired me to use these apps a lot less than I was doing. Hooray!

Things go slightly awry however in the second half. Johann interviews a man who says that chemicals are not tested before they are used in the environment - this is untrue (at least in the UK, if this is in the US only it should be made clear). The field of ecotoxicology may be small but it does exist and I have worked in it myself. I have LITERALLY lab-tested chemicals before they are allowed to be used in the environment. After this error I wasn't able to take the book so seriously.

Johann moves on to ADHD, which is interesting, but a lot of the information comes from neurotypical people, rather than neurodiverse people themselves.

All in all I loved the first half, I have loved Johann's other books, but the second half of this one didn't quite hit the mark.

16 people found this helpful

Dr. R. Bhairam

An absorbing ‘conspiracy’ analysis which eventually stole my focus!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2022

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I launched into this book with gusto and enthusiasm. It opens well and I found some of the analysis mind blowing, much actually resonating with myself. However as it develops the lack of empirical commentary and his speculative discourse did start to frustrate. Nearly every expert he introduces is ‘the top in their field’ or had professorships at prestigious universities such as Stanford, which I found a tad ironic as it is these elitist universities which are the recruiting grounds for the very institutions he was criticising and blaming for our ‘stealing our focus’. Most of what he says makes sense, and will certainly resonate with most readers, but won’t come as a huge surprise, I honestly got bored with its predictability about 60% in. And it’s littered with irony, my favourite being his criticism of the time we spend on devices, and the engineers who design algorithms and pop ups that continuously steal our focus, the very same thing that popped up on my feed advertising his book, which in turn drove me to order it (online!) and download it onto my device to read!
In summary, it’s a fascinating insight and perhaps worth a read (certainly for curious conspiracy lovers!), but it is definitely not worth the price …

9 people found this helpful

John Hobson

Excellent first 3/4, poor last 1/4 which diminishes earlier points made

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2022

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First half is great. Very compelling, lots of practical advice and clearly outlines how we've got to where we are and what the path out of it might be, what we can do personally and as a wider society.

However the chapter that really lets the book down is the one on ADHD. It's poorly researched and points are often evidenced by stories of the form "Little Johnny was disruptive and couldn't concentrate at all and then he went on this programme and now he's excelling in all areas of his life". Don't get me wrong, there are some good points made about external factors that could be causing an increase in ADHD diagnosis, but I felt that he totally invalided ADHD as an actual condition, despite his protestations that is what he absolutely was not doing. Felt a bit gaslighty to me. It was certainly apparent that he does not have kids of his own.

The weak points evidenced by cute stories did then make me re-evaluate some of the earlier parts of the book similarly evidenced and which I had lapped up at the time.

So in summary, it's still worth buying, there's lots of good stuff in it. Just read it with a pinch of salt.

One person found this helpful

Pete Hustwayte

If you've lived with ADHD, you've already mastered these skills

Reviewed in the United States on 16 February 2022

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My life experience is so different than the author's that I can't relate to his experience. Or, rather, I can't feel like a victim the way he does.
As someone who has ADHD and managed to become a high-performing professional, I found so little value in this book that I gave up on it. In my life, I have already quit smoking, quit drinking, left Facebook, and turned off my notifications for every application that has the potential to interrupt my day. In addition, I already eat healthy and, at the age of 55, I get more exercise than your typical 25 year old. I've done everything that I can do to eliminate distractions and create an atmosphere of focus.

105 people found this helpful

Jesse

3 Stars for Beautifully Spotlighting a Problem, But...

Reviewed in the United States on 2 March 2022

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This book has two core questions:

1) Do you see focus problems in the world today?
2) How do you fix them?

For question #1 - This book does a WONDERFUL job exposing some modern causes - some obvious, and some insidious. Mindlessness and lack of focus is a dilemma that is as old as humanity itself. What I love about Stolen Focus is that it portrays this based on today's landscape of: tech, diet, school, work. Great!

For question #2 - The book is biased heavily toward changing the world, and suggests distraction is an evil that none of us can vanquish on our own. Johann calls hope for personal effort "cruel pessimism", believing that there is a limit to how much we individually can do. (head shake...)

There is a mountain of material (both scientific and spiritual - have your pick) that can show someone how to recognize and quell distraction in your life. Google "mindfulness", and 1000 doorways open up to be explored! Google waking up app, by Sam Harris. Google wherever you go, there you are, by Jon Kabat Zinn. Google Cal Newport TEDx talk. I'm not suggesting this is trivial, but it's *definitely* possible.

Am I saying we shouldn't work to shape the environment? No. We should! But this is zero reason to give up on personal change and inflate a feeling of despair.

In short: I do suggest book, since it so beautifully shows how today's environment can ensnare your mind. But I feel the author gives up too easily on personal change. We have a ton of freedom and power to make a very big difference in our lives. Perhaps all the difference we need.

Good luck everyone.

4 people found this helpful

Simon Glass

Stories help to explain concepts but they seemed obvious to me. Gets a bit lost in political causes

Reviewed in the United States on 2 June 2022

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I found this somewhat interesting as it breaks things down into different reasons why people apparently focus less than they did in the wonderful times before the Internet, pollution, TV, modern education, improved but expensive healthcare, parental mollycoddling, etc.

At first it reads like the memoirs of a drug addict, except with social media, then it improves and then it seems to lose focus, ironically.

This is probably more suitable for 30-somethings who are desperately worried about everything and have no perspective. I lost track of all the problems but there is a lot of hand-wringing. It goes on about global warming, coal, terrible politicians who are insufficiently left-wing, evil corporations, junk food, etc.

It might help people gain some perspective, but I'm not sure. It might just make people blame others for their choices. But for the right reader, perhaps this confused book will help?

rjacksix

Great when on topic

Reviewed in the United States on 29 March 2022

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The author does a brilliant b job following the SCIENCE B of why we have had our focus Stolen. At that level it is a wonderful work that I would encourage parents to read and implement as many suggestions as possible.

The problem comes when Johann Strauss from his factual narrative and washers into the fiction of "the climate crisis",

Perhaps he can do his next book as a disinterested investigation of the facts for and against that, instead of falling for the mass media techniques he successfully decries in this book.

I would have given it FIVE STARSB of he had stayed in topic and not started preaching without facts about climate.

One person found this helpful

Laslo R. DeGregorio

A good beginning to putting tech distractions on our radar

Reviewed in the United States on 19 March 2022

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The book introduced some important ideas about the distractions of tech in our culture and how it may be affecting us, but in general was weak on the science. Statistics and studies were alluded to without reference or context, and throughout the book I worried that I was being led to a conclusion by the nose. Despite the author's insistence to the contrary, the book did seem to be a bit on the self-help end of the spectrum.
Not to take away from the importance of the ideas--this would have made a good magazine article--I thought much of it was just filler, a bit repetitive.
Still, yeah, a call to arms, we need to think about this a little harder.

Amazon Customer

Interesting read

Reviewed in the United States on 1 April 2022

Verified Purchase

I loved all the information and the in depth information about the topic, the one thing I didn't care for was how it kept diverging from the topic of focus to bring attention to climate change so that by the end of the book it seemed to be a plea for us to get back our focus so we can solve "the climate crisis"

One person found this helpful

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