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zetauma's review
4.0
Every human on this planet should read this book. Humanity is faced with a myriad of existential issues that are growing at an exponential rate, many of which are interconnected. This book delves into one of the core roots of these issues - the attention crisis - exploring how we arrived at this point and some potential paths we, as a society, can take to address it, regardless of how controversial these paths may be. Hari also shares his personal struggles with attention and focus, offering excellent first steps that we, as individuals, can take to find our way out of the weeds.
tomskipatotski's review
medium-paced
2.0
Would be more credible if it were properly cited, but the author was also canned for plagiarism a while back so his work is already suspect. The initial thesis drew me in, since I'm interested in how technological advances affect our wider culture, and I do like the idea that a wider sociological perspective is needed to understand issues with cognitive focus. When he tries to tackle ADHD in children, however... ugh. I really saw the lack of proper citations the further I read.
As it currently stands, this is a poorly cited pop-psych book with ambitious ideas but shoddy methodology. I would tell people to go read The Age of Surveillance Capitalism instead for a more rigorous report on how Big Tech companies target people's attention.
As it currently stands, this is a poorly cited pop-psych book with ambitious ideas but shoddy methodology. I would tell people to go read The Age of Surveillance Capitalism instead for a more rigorous report on how Big Tech companies target people's attention.
jochaatuu's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
Incredibly informative, I bought a copy for myself.
rebeccazh's review
4.0
3.5 stars. This is a decent read as an introduction to ideas about tech and attention. I find Hari's writing style a bit lacking in nuance and I'm familiar with most of the stuff he's covering, hence a 3.5 stars. He covers: tech and exploitative design, loss of focus and fractured attention, the power of sleep, the quality of food, children and how tech and stress affects them developmentally, an increasingly stressful society and its effects on attention, mind wandering, creativity, flow, and work life balance. This will probably pair well with The Anxious Generation, and echoes many of the points about exploitative or persuasive design in other works.