I really liked the first half of Stolen Focus. I liked how the author described his initial frustration with his nephew’s inability to focus on real life and his own declining ability to focus, and how he originally attributed this to a lack of willpower (like most of us do). Then, he shifts from the idea that restoring focus depends on individuals to the understanding that there are certain societal forces and techniques used by social media and other online platforms that reward this behavior. After meeting and talking to people who claimed they could successfully break from these dependencies, he seems to be back to his original thought, and I like how he shows his thought process, going back and forth.
What I liked most was the concept of “cruel optimism”, which can be described as “you can overcome negative influence if you deploy certain techniques, and anyone can do this if they try.” I am guilty of doing a similar thing for many years, telling people that “if I could do it, they could do it as well.” It took me many years to learn to stop giving advice and explaining to people what and how they should do. I still fall into this behavior from time to time, but at least I recognize it and try to stop 🙂
The second half was less interesting because it mostly repeated well-known facts about the environment and general recommendations on how to minimize its impact, as well as rather generic self-help recommendations, so in the end, I was more disappointed than excited about this book, but I will definitely use the “cruel optimism” concept in my future discussions.
Hettie's Reflections 