Hari’s evidence that there is an attention crisis, and that it’s acute, is more damning than one’s worst assumptions. In his unsettling Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention - genuinely deserving of an “everyone should read it” tag - Hari argues that our ability to solve the pressing, even existential problems of the day, such as climate change, suffer from the fact that we simply can’t zero in on the complex issues as we must. The upshot of this dismal condition extends far beyond the inability to relish thousand-page reads. This is our brain’s quandary today: the masses of information flooding our senses at hitherto unprecedented speeds have swamped, exhausted and abused us. But even the most formidable gatekeeper is overwhelmed when dozens of determined revellers storm his post at once. The brain filters thoughts and other impulses the way a doorman does partygoers intent on entering a popular nightspot. "The brain is like a nightclub bouncer," one neuroscientist told writer Johann Hari during his three-year exploration of our attention crisis, namely society’s evermore pronounced inability to concentrate.
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