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13 Works 2,577 Members 84 Reviews

About the Author

Johann Hari is a British journalist. His TED talk, "Everything You Think You Know about Addiction Is Wrong," was one of the most viewed of 2015, and an extract from this book on the Huffington Past about the real cause of addiction went vital globally. Hari has twice been named Newspaper Journalist show more of the Year by Amnesty International for his reporting from the war in the Congo and the fall of Dubai. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Le Monde, State, the New Republic, 2nd the Nation, among other international publications. show less

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I loved most of the book, there's been quite some good advice I've been able to use to start healing my focus and I found the sections on how these sites are intentionally made to worsen our attention problems very enlightening. There is however a caveat - the chapter (or was it 2 chapters) on ADHD. Now, I'm not completely against touching on this as the problems with attention and how the environment is made to make it very hard certainly doesn't help people with ADHD, but he comitts all of the cardinal sins; 1) Not neurodivergent, 2) Talks with scientists about ADHD, 3) The scientists are not psychologists, 4) Narrows down ADHD to only being about paying attention, 5) Does not talk to anyone with ADHD or ND organization, 6) Only focuses on children, 7) Talks about cases of children mistakenly getting ADHD diagnosis but all of them are basically cases of gross misconduct by those who did it like a child who got a diagnosis of ADHD because he couldn't pay attention and had been sexually abused. A lot of concern against ADHD medication but really any solution other then that you can improve your attention in other ways, but again attention problems is only one (and maybe not even the biggest) issue people with ADHD have.

So by and large the book was very good, but I did want to write this out. And just as an aside I am SO tired of NTs writing/talking ABOUT US instead of TO US or WITH US. Sigh.
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dond_ashall | 19 other reviews | Feb 7, 2024 |
Another ADD book that I got as an audiobook, but I’m already very discouraged. I don’t like the narrators accent and the book is too boring for anyone with ADD to finish. Like most self-help books, rather than telling you what you could do to help yourself in a nutshell, they pad and expand the book with long stories about this or that person and what they did. Everyone wants to write an ADD book nowadays and they’re very few that are actually helpful for managing ADD.
 
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laurelzito | 19 other reviews | Jan 28, 2024 |
*4.5*

A great (and important) read. I really liked the way Johann Hari writes and how he put all of his stories together into a coherent whole. Many of the topics he dives into will be familiar to a lot of readers, I think (myself included) - but to have them all so clearly presented, and the scientific studies explained, is powerful.
 
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Alexandra_book_life | 19 other reviews | Dec 15, 2023 |
Reasons why attention spans and the ability to focus are declining on an individual and social level.

Well-argued and convincing book about an important problem. It's not just that I'm getting older. There are social factors similar to those why the quality of a lot of people's diet in developed countries is declining. It deserves all the stars.
 
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Robertgreaves | 19 other reviews | Nov 1, 2023 |

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Works
13
Members
2,577
Popularity
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Rating
4.1
Reviews
84
ISBNs
66
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