"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. The brain filters thoughts and other impulses the way a doorman does partygoers intent on entering a popular nightspot. But even the most formidable gatekeeper is overwhelmed when dozens of determined revellers storm his post at once.
This is our brain’s quandary today: the masses of information flooding our senses at hitherto unprecedented speeds have swamped, exhausted and abused us. The upshot of this dismal condition extends far beyond the inability to relish thousand-page reads.
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.
Hari’s evidence that there is an attention crisis, and that it’s acute, is more damning than one’s worst assumptions. Studies show that the average US college student switches tasks every 65 seconds, and focuses on one thing for an average of only 19 seconds.
Adults, though, hardly fare better: at the workplace, employees stay with one task for an average of three minutes. Book reading is just one symptom and casualty: between 2004 and 2017 book reading for pleasure had fallen 40 per cent among men and 29 percent for women.
The sheer quantity of information hurdled at us is a large part of humankind’s quandary. The amount of data blasted at one has shot up four-fold between 1986 and 2007, much though not all of this largess made possible by the internet.
But Hari is adamant that Big Tech and digital communication are not the sole culprits.
Sleep deprivation, for example, saps our concentration — not a profound observation. But according to the National Sleep Foundation, in our work-obsessed societies we get 20 per cent less shut-eye than people did a hundred years ago. This is the new normal — and thus the default modus vivendi for children, too, who suffer disproportionately from the affliction.
Big Tech, though, is here too at least in part a cause: the blue light of screens impacts our minds for hours after our laptops are shut down, making sleep more difficult.
Perhaps Hari’s greatest revelation, and rightly shocking to him, is that social media and the internet aren’t concentration-ravishing by their nature. Rather, the designers of digital communication technology make social media and news feeds and other apps and sites in a way most maximally detrimental to our attention spans — and they know it. This construction is not inevitable, but a cynical, profit-maximising design of choice.
You could, one Silicon Valley interlocutor told Hari, design tech “with the opposite goal: to maximally respect people’s need for sustained attention, and to interrupt them as little as possible. You could design the technology not so that it pulls people away from their deeper and more meaningful goals, but so that it helps them to achieve them.”
But where’s the payoff then?
Replace screen time with life time
A digital detox, namely going cold turkey by logging out completely — no smartphone, tablet, laptop, nothing — isn’t the answer “for the same reason,” one expert told Hari, “that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep, at an individual level, certain effects at bay. But it’s not sustainable and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.”
Yes, a system rigged to rob us of our thought space and ability to contemplate. If one can’t retreat to an internet-free island or commune, then what is one to do?
Hari is adamant that blaming oneself is wrong and counterproductive, but he concludes that winning back one’s attention span is, ultimately, up to you.
He emphasises that his is not a self-help book but he offers some sage tips for self help that make sense, and he’s tried them with some effect: slow down, do one thing at a time, sleep more, day dream. Once a first-order news junkie, he now takes six months a year off social media (divided into a few weeks at a time) even having a friend change his passwords to prevent him from relapsing. Hari walks for an hour a day — critically, without the cell phone in his pocket. (A practice I highly recommend!) And he works less, liberating time for slow practices such as yoga, meditation and reading books.
This is important stuff, and not just for the well-being of Hari. We’re in the midst of an urgent planetary crisis. Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, as are temperatures and extreme weather. We have to focus!
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The%20specs
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Where to submit a sample
Volunteers of all ages can submit DNA samples at centres across Abu Dhabi, including: Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec), Biogenix Labs in Masdar City, NMC Royal Hospital in Khalifa City, NMC Royal Medical Centre, Abu Dhabi, NMC Royal Women's Hospital, Bareen International Hospital, Al Towayya in Al Ain, NMC Specialty Hospital, Al Ain
The biog
Born: High Wycombe, England
Favourite vehicle: One with solid axels
Favourite camping spot: Anywhere I can get to.
Favourite road trip: My first trip to Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan. The desert they have over there is different and the language made it a bit more challenging.
Favourite spot in the UAE: Al Dhafra. It’s unique, natural, inaccessible, unspoilt.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday (All UAE kick-off times)
Cagliari v AC Milan (6pm)
Lazio v Napoli (9pm)
Inter Milan v Atalanta (11.45pm)
Sunday
Udinese v Sassuolo (3.30pm)
Sampdoria v Brescia (6pm)
Fiorentina v SPAL (6pm)
Torino v Bologna (6pm)
Verona v Genoa (9pm)
Roma V Juventus (11.45pm)
Parma v Lecce (11.45pm)
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Off-roading in the UAE: How to checklist
Fight card
1. Bantamweight: Victor Nunes (BRA) v Siyovush Gulmamadov (TJK)
2. Featherweight: Hussein Salim (IRQ) v Shakhriyor Juraev (UZB)
3. Catchweight 80kg: Rashed Dawood (UAE) v Khamza Yamadaev (RUS)
4. Lightweight: Ho Taek-oh (KOR) v Ronald Girones (CUB)
5. Lightweight: Arthur Zaynukov (RUS) v Damien Lapilus (FRA)
6. Bantamweight: Vinicius de Oliveira (BRA) v Furkatbek Yokubov (RUS)
7. Featherweight: Movlid Khaybulaev (RUS) v Zaka Fatullazade (AZE)
8. Flyweight: Shannon Ross (TUR) v Donovon Freelow (USA)
9. Lightweight: Mohammad Yahya (UAE) v Dan Collins (GBR)
10. Catchweight 73kg: Islam Mamedov (RUS) v Martun Mezhulmyan (ARM)
11. Bantamweight World title: Jaures Dea (CAM) v Xavier Alaoui (MAR)
12. Flyweight World title: Manon Fiorot (FRA) v Gabriela Campo (ARG)
The specs: 2018 Mercedes-Benz E 300 Cabriolet
Price, base / as tested: Dh275,250 / Dh328,465
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder
Power: 245hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 370Nm @ 1,300rpm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.0L / 100km
Racecard
6pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2 Group 1 (PA) $55,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
6.35pm: Oud Metha Stakes Rated Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,200m
7.10pm: Jumeirah Classic Listed (TB) $150,000 (Turf) 1,600m
7.45pm: Firebreak Stakes Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,600m
8.20pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2 Group 2 (TB) $350,000 (D) 1,900m
8.55pm: Al Bastakiya Trial Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,900m
9.30pm: Balanchine Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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'Shakuntala Devi'
Starring: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Rating: Three out of five stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Company%20Profile
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Tom Fletcher on 'soft power'
