Book Review and Christian Critique

Stolen Focus

By Johann Hari

If you’ve ever read Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, this book is along a similar vein. With just under 300 pages, Hari writes each chapter based on a different aspect of the topic of attention and focus, with multiple interviews conducted among professionals in different fields. Sleep, ADHD, screen time, and news are among the highlighted topics that can affect the attention of a person. I think that even though Hari comes at it from a secular standpoint, there is truth we can consider and principles that we can apply. It was appropriate for me to read this book on my screen-free Sabbath! It can be a niche topic at times, but Hari writes in a way that keeps your attention throughout, in my opinion.

My short and quick critiques are as follows:

• Hari is not afraid to keep the original language used during the conversations he has with the different professionals that he interviews. In saying this, there is some unnecessary language scattered throughout. 

  
  

• The overall worldly perspective could leave an unbelieving person feeling hopeless by the end of the book. Hari even leaves the conclusion confessing that he could not find a perfect solution to the issues at hand.

  
  

• Hari tends to blame the whole focus issue on external forces. While he is not wrong to say that lots of these forces are not our choice in this modern society, we still are responsible for ourselves and what we allow to come into our minds and homes. I do not appreciate the victim mindset that is underwritten throughout, even though it is mainly silent.

With all the critiques, I still want to own this book one day and would recommend everybody to read it for themselves! There were more positive takeaways and helpful knowledge, than negative. I’ll leave you with the positive takeaways and thoughts that Hari mentions throughout.

-Fast news is bad. New apps on our phones, constant news on television, clips of news circling social media. No one was built to take in and comprehend news from around the world at the speed and quantity that we find ourselves doing today. Whenever I get a new phone, I make sure to always delete the news app and since we do not have a television or cable, I stay out of most news. 

- Humans are meant to only fully focus on 1-2 things at a time. The term “multi-tasking” is very recent in the scope of history and is not a positive thing. As a Christian, it makes sense that God built the human brain to be this way. We are commanded to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). It is good, and okay, if all we can keep our mind on is God and the current task given to us.

- Sleep is underrated. Our body clocks are supposed to sleep and wake according to natural light, the sun. Recent inventions of lightbulbs and blue-light screens have significantly changed our internal rhythmic cycle. While most of that is out of our control, we can still monitor and reduce the amount of screens that we view before bed and after waking. 

-Children are overmedicated for ADHD. There are possibly other root causes that can affect attention spans and disorders in children. 

Overall, while many of these forces, or issues, are external, how we react to them as Christians, is key! We control and filter what we can, and leave the rest to God!