ADHD and Gaming

The link between ADHD and Online Addictions

by AttentionDigital Health & Wellbeing
Does spending lots of time online cause ADHD?

Directly. It seems not.

Spending time on digital devices does reduce your ability to focus and concentrate and excessive use can cause symptoms similar to those displayed with ADHD, but using a device will not ‘give you’ ADHD.  

Indirectly. It seems to. 

According to Gabor Mate, ADHD is a coping mechanism that children develop when there is limited connection with their primary caregiver does not, or is not able to, respond to their immediate need for care, reassurance and comfort. 

If a child does not receive an appropriate level of comfort, eye contact and their basic needs met, the child turns their focus inwards to achieve the comfort they need. It is this inward focusing that wires the brain in a non-neuro-typical way. 

Historically, it was those parents who were overly stressed, emotionally overburdened or in a state of survival that did not give them the emotional and mental resources to extend the care and 1-2-1 attention a young child needs to feel secure and safe in the world. 

However, since the launch of the smartphone, how many parents of young children do you see staring at their mobile screens while their young children are seeking or needing their attention? 

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children who are being diagnosed with ADHD, especially since the beginning of 2020. Is it just that we have more awareness of the condition and therefore a better ability to spot and diagnose it? OR are there simply more care-givers who are more distracted than ever before? 

Does ADHD predispose you to addictions?

Directly, it does seem to.

Those with ADHD have lower overall levels of Dopamine – the anticipation-feel-good hormone. Spending time online including scrolling through social media, gaming, gambling or pornography all contribute to regular, tiny bursts of Dopamine into the system.  

In their book ADHD 2.0, Dr Hallowell and Dr Ratey state that, ‘addiction of all kinds are five to ten times more common in people who have ADHD than in the general population.’  They talk about an itch that can only be scratched in certain ways. From a positive perspective, this leads to ‘adaptive, worthwhile and sustainable’ creativity, but can also lead to ‘maladaptive and destructive’ behaviour and addictions. 

There are socially acceptable forms of addiction and socially unacceptable forms of addiction. Online addictions vary by category on the spectrum from social media scrolling to gaming, gambling and pornography (to name a few).

All are driven by the same Dopamine itch that needs scratching (to a greater or lesser degree).

So what can we do about it?

If you have been diagnosed with ADHD or suspect you may have ADHD, here are a few things you can try:

  • Find a coach or therapist who works with adults who have ADHD to help you find different ways to manage the itch and find more creative outlets to express and capitalise on your inherent natural talents. 
  • Experiment with several external ‘real world’ activities that will help you build a local community and get you exercising.  Increasing your coordination and creating muscle movement is shown to help a number of those diagnosed with ADHD.
  • Actively seek to build stronger in-person relationships. Those who have ADHD thrive better in strong communities and have those around them who love, protect and care for them.
  • Go on a digital diet. Work with others in your household to create tech house rules that purposefully limit the amount of time available to spend on digital devices. 
  • Delete the apps from your phone that are the hardest for you to resist. Having extra barriers in place that increase access friction to apps or websites, decreases the easy access to the mini-Dopamine hits. 

In the above video, Dr Gabor Mate talks about the conditions that impact the development of children that lead to ADHD (and impulse regulation circulation and capacity).

In the below videos, Dr Hallowell talks about changing the narrative from disability and disorder to a fascinating trait. In the book he wrote alongside Dr Ratey (ADHD 2.0), he talks about ADHD being a person’s superpower.

He views ADHD as having a racing car brain with bicycle breaks. A fabulous analogy that helps those with ADHD to find ways to maximise their superpower.

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AI Content Creation

Why I don’t use AI to create content

by CognitionOpinion Piece

At a recent Directors Round Table event, I was chatting with a few there about becoming more focused on content creation. The overwhelming recommendation was to use ChatGPT to pull together the initial information and then ‘edit it in your voice’. 

Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m a bit too much of a Luddite. Maybe I have a too traditional approach to sharing information with others. Or maybe I prefer to write something original. But, I found the advice rather jarring and found myself doing a mental recoil from the suggestion.

My response was more reactionary than I had anticipated, in being so vehemently opposed to the idea. At the time I stated something in the realm of ‘content creation being part of my ongoing learning process’. 

I’ve had some time to contemplate my reaction and after watching a video Rory Sutherland put out on LinkedIn, I realised that he put into words what I had not been able to. 

His argument included the concept that we don’t keep all the essays and assignments we pull together at university to read and re-read at a later date. Writing essays is not so much about the content itself (which may or may not be valuable for others to read), but rather it is about wrestling with the information, making sense of it, understanding how it fits with other information already stored and finding unique, creative and insightful connections that you otherwise would not have made.

When pulling together an AI-curated blog post or article, all you are doing is re-constituting relatively well-written information that can be generated by any other Jo Bloggs.

It’s the same reason I don’t have anyone else create social media posts.

Creating unique content is about adding value to yourself and others. Finding connections that others may not have made before and adding a unique viewpoint on the topic that may not have been considered before. 

The thoughts and viewpoints on this site might differ radically from yours. Some may agree with me and others may oppose my perspectives.

But, what can be guaranteed is that the content created on this site was sourced, read, considered, thought of, contemplated, compiled, and written by a human being. Typed in one letter at a time and edited one sentence at a time.

And yes, AI has its place and added value on every page (probably without exception). Ironing out spelling and grammar errors using AI (i.e. Grammarly) makes it easier for others to read. And even in that process of correcting writing errors, there is learning. 

So, in the footer of the Cybercology website is the following disclaimer: 

Non-AI Content Generation

There is a reason for this. 

We rush too quickly into a new technology, trying to keep ahead of everyone else in business. But, I think we are leaving behind something more valuable. Building core individual knowledge and creating and maintaining human connection and community.

We sometimes need to take a step back and consider what we lose when we so quickly embrace a new technology. It can add loads of value and I don’t deny that AI-generated content can do that. But, using it to shortcut a learning process is denying ourselves of something which (I think) is fundamental to being human – sharing knowledge, rather than simply content creation. 

I would rather post one article blog a month that I (or another human) has written than blast out an article a day that a bot has written. 

You may or may not agree with me, but isn’t that the point of putting ideas out there through written content? At least you will be agreeing or disagreeing with me (and I’m ok with that) as a human, rather than something an algorithm wrote. 

Dopamine Nation

Dopamine Nation – Anna Lembke

by Book ReviewsDigital Brain

In her book, Dopamine Nation, Dr Anna Lembke explores how our dopamine system works and how, in our search for happiness and the pursuit of pleasure and quick fixes, we can unwittingly head into a state of chronic dopamine deficiency that drives and exacerbates our reliance on our ‘happiness fix’ that leads to addictive behaviours and substances.

She tells stories of both her own and her clients addictive behaviours, showcasing how this hedonic pursuit for moments of happiness can be the very thing that undoes us.

She then provides a 3-step process of how to emerge from this state, and clearly explains why they are the solution to our dopamine-deprived behaviours. These solutions are summed up in one of her talks as: 

  1. Abstain
  2. Maintain
  3. Seek our Pain

Summing up the third principle is: “The reason that we are all so miserable is that we are working so hard to avoid being miserable”. 

Underlying this is “The Plenty Paradox: Overabundance is itself a stressor caused by the mismatch between our primitive wiring and our modern dopamine-rich ecosystem”. 

The best way to capture the essence of her book is her own introduction to it – one of the best descriptions I’ve come across to clarify the dopamine indulgence of our current generations:

“This book is about pleasure, It’s also about pain. Most importantly, it’s about the relationship between pleasure and pain and how understanding that relationship has become essential for a life well lived. Why? Because we’ve transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, Tweeting. The increased numbers and potency of highly rewarding stimuli today is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle delivering digital dopamine 24/7to a wired generation. If you haven’t met your drug of choice yet, it’s coming soon to a website near you. “

In the above video, Dr Lembke explains the role of dopamine as a motivational agent and the role it plays in addiction.

In the below video, she talks about the relationship dopamine plays in smartphone addiction – including why teenagers engage in and are impacted by social media. She talks about technology as being a ‘spectrum disorder’ and what that looks like. 

A small selection of additional videos and interviews by Dr Lembke on this subject can be viewed below. More can be found by searching for her on YouTube.

Cambridge Core provides a great summation of Dopamine Nation written by Amer Raheemullah. You can read it here. 

About Anna Lembke:

Anna Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic.

You can read more about her at her website: https://www.annalembke.com

Other Book Reviews
Social Media shopping

Social Media shopping capitalises on dopamine

by Digital Brain

An anecdotal account in an article in the Guardian showcases some actions a lot of us take when scrolling through social media – stopping at an advert and buying whatever it is that is on offer, being disappointed with the purchase when it arrives and heading off to the post-office to send it back.

The article suggests that the purchasing of these items stems from an underlying desire to fulfil our unmet needs – i.e. ‘what I’m really responding to is the problem solving that [the Instagram advert] presented to me’. Additionally social media shopping is a lot more seamless (or frictionless) than in-store shopping transactions, sometimes taking you close to the point of a 1-click ordering process. 

I, however, would argue that social media shopping is rather the fulfilment of a need you never knew you had, well that is until you viewed the highly polished, storytelling, lifestyle changing, self-image enhancing advert.

In a previous life, I worked in a Coca-Cola bottler marketing team in Africa. During that time, the marketing team was always referred to as the ‘Demand Creators’, and the Sales Team as the Demand Fulfillers of the products that were manufactured. This is probably the most accurate description I’ve come across in defining what marketers and advertisers actually do… they create demand for a product or service you didn’t think (or know) you needed. If you hadn’t seen the advert, would you have thought, ‘yes, I definitely need this very specific item’. Possibly not. You would more than likely have made do with what was already available to you. A glass of water is a much healthier, easier, cheaper, better way of quenching your thirst.

Why do we keep compulsively shopping online when we are constantly disappointed with the products we buy?

We know that the anticipation of a reward is often more exciting than the fulfilment of the actual reward. How often have you been really excited about a n upcoming holiday, dinner or event, only to be really disappointed at how little it meets with our expectations.

Neuroscience has shown that the dopamine the brain releases in anticipation of the upcoming reward is a major part of the overall enjoyment of the experience – sometimes to the point that the fulfilment of the action (i.e. the reward) is below par, as we’ve already received the necessary dopamine hit and don’t get the same level of spike when the reward is received.  

We know that scrolling through social media already provides our brain with constant mini-injections of dopamine. It’s why we gravitate towards those apps when we are feeling a little down or bored. Being able to up that level of dopamine through the anticipation of a shopping reward, just capitalises on the constant stream of dopamine already being shunted into the brain – and helps to escalate the fix we are craving. It’s a different type of dopamine fix than the rewards that in-store shopping brings.

Sometimes the need for that dopamine inspired reward seeking behaviour leads us down an addictive bent. Dr Gabor Mate often refers to those types of addictions as a form reward or coping mechanism that you’ve lost control over. Dr Gina Cleo, in the first chapter of her new book ‘The Habit Revolution’, refers to habits as often being formed due to decisive actions taken to fulfil a specific function, which has then turned into a subconscious, automated behaviour.

The dopamine rush, therefore, is the primary anticipation driver of the perceived reward that is the underlying element of addictive or behaviour such as compulsive or impulsive shopping – whether that’s instore or online. That behaviour continues because the dopamine rush from the anticipation is well worth the effort, even when the actual item is of poor quality or doesn’t fulfil expectations. So, we continue to engage in the same behaviour, because we crave the dopamine rush that we get from the shopping experience, the anticipation of the items arrival and the opening up of the parcel when it does arrive.

The thing with Dopamine, is that it’s a great ‘pick me up’. Our body is always trying to maintain a homeostatic balance, so, if we are feeling a little down, a little stressed, a little out-of-sorts, we will automatically find a way to get a dopamine boost – to try balance things out again. If scrolling through social media or purchasing something on Instagram is a quick-fix way of doing that, we are going to be drawn towards doing it – again and again.

What can we do to change our behaviour?

The question is, if we are in a habitual loop of buying things on social media that don’t meet the promised expectations, then what can we do to stop this impulsive or compulsive buying loop?

  1. The first thing is to recognise the habit it for what it is and try to understand what is driving that habit. Think about how you are feeling when you click on the link for the advert. Are you feeling sad, stress, a little low, bored?
  2. The second thing is to understand what has made you feel that way. What is the trigger. Is there anything you could do to reduce the cause of that feeling? If not, is there anything else you can do to make yourself feel a little better that does not result in scrolling through social media and reduce the chances of clicking on a social media ad – buying something you didn’t think you needed?
  3. The third thing is to start shifting your automatic behaviour (i.e. habits) in a different direction in the future. So, for example, when you start recognising that you are starting to feel a little bored, try delaying picking up your phone (so you can scroll through social media) and try doing something else that may help reduce the boredom. The main aim is to give your body and mind something else to associate with a quick dopamine release that doesn’t require picking your phone up.

Maybe the solution lies with spending less time without our devices anywhere near us, so we can relearn what it means to give ourselves the opportunity to ‘just be’, to ‘just watch’, or ‘just listen’, or maybe even watch a significant or meaningful event without looking at it through a screen? Maybe we should create more digital free zones at home and while out with friends?

We often spend a lot more time that we would like to on our digital devices. Creating healthier digital habits takes time and perseverance. It will be tough, but for your longer term digital mental health, it is well worth the effort.

As a side note: the video within the first part of The Guardian article is worth a watch – as part of the Guardians ‘Reclaim Your Brain’ series.

Related Articles
Screentime and Memory Loss

Is excessive screen time affecting our memory?

by Memory

Memory loss is a concern for many – especially as we age – and is all too real if we have elderly relatives who show signs of dementia.

But, what if technology plays a greater role in the onset of memory loss in younger adults than we may give it credit for?

A recent opinion piece in the Epoch Times suggests that technology could be linked to a risk of early onset dementia-type symptoms (referred to as ‘digital dementia’) – a direct result of excessive technology use. The piece suggests that our passive use of technology reduces the use of our prefrontal cortex (involved in higher-level executive functions – i.e. planning and decision-making) and shrinkage of the grey matter (critical to emotions, memory and movement).

Although this may be the case, in an article in Psychology Today, Susan Greenfield (PhD) suggests the notion of ‘digital dementia’ is one that is more in line with the concept of neuroplasticity.

Our brains form and build neurons in order to supplement and enhance areas that are most used. Much like building muscles in the body, neurons in our brains grow and fire together to expand the most used neural pathways, so that more information can flow down these pathways more easily. This is how we build up skillsets and muscle memory.

With this in mind, research seems to find that video gamers are more likely to use an area of the brain called the Striatum (directly associated with a response strategy triggered by specific locations). This makes sense from the perspective that entering a specific area in a game often requires engaging in the same predictable (pre-programmed) actions and reactions.

The need to strategically navigate a new set of dynamic responses to get from one area to another would involve a different area of the brain called the hippocampus (that creates spatial memory maps – i.e. how locations are related to each other). As a ‘real world’ example, London Black Cab drivers, have a much larger hippocampus region as they build the necessary spatial memory skills to enable them to navigate the most direct path to a specific location as a person enters their cab.

Ms Greenfield suggests the increase in gaming reduces grey matter in the hippocampus – which is directly associated with (amongst other disorders) PTSD, depression and dementia.

In an earlier article for Psychology Today, Ms Greenfield suggests that the use of smartphones is resulting in a change to the way we use our brains. We either retain information for future recall and use, or we retain a memory of how to find the information in the future.

She elucidates that, based on research, some people are ‘cognitive misers’, which means we don’t want to use cognitive energy to learn new information and retain it for future use or think through a problem in order to solve it. Nicknamed the ‘Google Effect’, these people are not as good at learning information if they know how to find it by searching for it later on – thereby using the internet as part of their memory bank.

Although there is a case for our brain to automate certain functions to allow our processing memory the space to tackle other or new tasks and skills, if we don’t use our brains to think and process information regularly, we are susceptible to cognitive atrophy (i.e. ‘use it or lose it). As Ms Greenfield so aptly puts it “if we use Google to supply the dots in the first place, then our ability to make new connections – to convert information to knowledge – may also be in jeopardy.”

She goes on to describe how our thoughts are an essential dimension of our identity. If we outsource our thinking to a machine, what impact will that then have on our identity in the longer term?

So, does excessive screen time and digital use increase the potential for symptoms of ‘digital dementia’? It all depends on how you use your digital technology and what portion of time spend online is a form of entertainment or a form of work. Technology is an enabler of our daily cognitive choices. Like going to the gym or eating well, exercising our brain on a daily basis is a choice only we can make, but we do need to be mindful of the outcome of that daily choice.

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ADHD 2.0

ADHD 2.0 – Edward M. Hallowell, MD and John J. Ratey, MD

by AttentionBook Reviews

Although this book is not, technically, a cyberpsychology-related book, it’s included here as ADHD is commonly linked to online addictions.

As the doctors explain, those with ADHD are 5 to 10 times more likely to have some sort of addiction. 

If you, or your child, has ADHD or is suspected of having ADHD, then this is a book that is worth reading. 

As both authors are psychiatrists who have ADHD and treat those with the same condition, they write from both personal experience and from a scientific therapeutic perspective.

Their perspective on what ADHD is – how it is a super-power, rather than a pathology can help to reframe how you view and optimise the strengths of the condition while minimising the tougher sides of living with the condition.

CBT, narrative psychology NLP and positive psychology are all therapeutic interventions that have their basis in changing how we view and talk about our lived experience.

That is what this book can do for you.

By explaining what is going on in your brain and giving you a new vocabulary to understand what it means for you, you will have more tools to help empower you to take back control of your habits and pitfalls that seem to be a constant stumbling block for you. 

So, this is why this book is included with other recommended books. 

Below are a number of videos of the authors explaining more about their book and their specialities.

Find out more about Edward M. Hallowell, MD

You can visit his website here and his YouTube channel here.

Find out more about John J. Ratey, MD

You can visit his website here and find out more about his research.

Book Review Related Articles
Creativity

Can technology use affect our creative and lateral thinking abilities?

by Creative & Divergent ThinkingResearch

There is a common misconception, based on research done on split-brain patients in the 1960s, that creativity and analytical thinking activities are either right- or left-hemisphere brain functioning. We often talk about people being either creative or analytical, implying a dominance of either the right or left side of their brain. This thinking has been challenged by creativity research conducted since the 1980s. But the outdated myth has become entrenched as a worldview, an overarching narrative about how we work, and a subconscious bias towards the creative ability of both ourselves and others. We are all creative, we just don’t always realise it, or label it as such. 

Research on freestyle wrappers indicated that it was necessary for the brain to attenuate (i.e. subvert) the analytical regions in order for the creative regions of the brain to be able to activate and form creative ideas. Both analytical and creative regions could be found on the right and left sides of the brain. This is why we have so many great ideas in the shower, on a walk, or at times we are not distracting ourselves with our cognitively demanding activities or our technology. Research done by Bluhm, R. et al in 2009 demonstrated that when we are bored the central part of our brain lights up. This means that the more distracted we are, the less likely we are to engage in types of self-reflection, or reflection of any kind for that matter. 

A creative idea is defined by Alice Flaherty as ‘one that is both novel and useful (or influential) in a particular social setting’. If our attention is focused on a screen or the analytical part of our brain is distracted or engaged in wrestling with a problem to solve, it seems it isn’t possible to have creative ideas or be able to make lateral thinking connections. 

Our ability to be creative has fascinated me for quite some time. During my corporate marketing days, with a growing sense of irony, I noticed that an analytical mindset was considered to have greater value than a more creative mindset. When there was discussion around ‘being creative’, what seems to have been implied was the ability to think laterally, rather than creatively. Additionally, there seemed to be an underlying thinking that (if DeBono was correct) lateral and divergent thinking skills were teachable. For some reason, this didn’t quite make sense to me. I had always assumed that creative, divergent and lateral thinking ability was inherent in everyone. I also believed that creativity and artistic ability weren’t always correlated  – in the same way as all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

In reviewing research literature, I discovered that those who have more of the Openness Personality Trait are more likely to be creative. However, I couldn’t find any previous research that focussed on the link between Lateral Thinking and personality traits. So, as part of my final psychology degree dissertation, I sought to understand if there was a specific type of person who had a greater ability to think laterally and was, therefore, someone that could be more ideally suited to a ‘creative’ role or career than others.

What my research study suggested is that although there did indeed seem to be a correlation between personality and creativity, there was no correlation between personality and lateral thinking skills. This could be because lateral thinking questions used in research are often based on the ability of a person to solve a puzzle by drawing on associations with their past lived experience. E.g. one of the questions is: Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody put them on the lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they should be there. Why is that? The answer is: They were used to make a snowman, which has now melted. The question assumes the reader has grown up where it snows during winter, and they have had the experience of building snowmen using carrots and coal for their facial features. Another question is: A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at which point, he knew he was bankrupt. Why? The answer is: He was playing Monopoly. If someone has never played Monopoly in the past, they would never be able to come up with that answer. 

What the research suggested is that lateral thinking ability is directly linked to age. The more life experience a person has, the greater ability they have to make connections between seemingly random pieces of information to solve a unique puzzle. 

Going back to how this creativity and lateral thinking are related to technology? The reality could be that spending more time online or staring at a screen, can limit our ability to engage in alternative lived experiences. It also limits the time our brain has to engage in free association while not distracted or thinking analytically. This can potentially lead to lower levels of creative time and possibly a sense of creative ability. The less experience we have at being creative and thinking laterally, the less creative we think we are and the lower the chances are that we will give ourselves the freedom to recognise that we are by nature creative and allow ourselves to engage in more creative tasks. 

If you’d like to read more on the personality and lateral thinking research (including the research questionnaire and analysis), you can read it here. 

Links to a few other articles and podcasts on being creative are available below:  

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Divergent Mind Article Header

Divergent Mind – Jenara Nerenberg

by Book ReviewsCreative & Divergent Thinking

Humans tend to categorise and group others according to specific physical, behavioural and mental states or characteristics.

We do this because we need shortcuts to minimise excessive energy consumption. Getting to know someone on an individual basis takes time, effort and energy. So, if we can quickly classify someone, we can group them according to our biases and constructed categories, so we can quickly either reject, accept, embrace or alienate others.

‘Judging a book by its cover’ is part of this natural default.

So, categorising and pathologising a certain type of behaviour and psychological or neurological condition is a quick way to understand and behave towards another. 

But, even boxes have nuances and not all boxes are created equal.

Culturally, we have expressed and embraced certain historical biases and narratives of people, mostly based on medical/psychological categories based on ‘common’ symptoms that align with the diagnostic criteria and descriptions.

The current mental health criteria (especially according to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual – DSM) used can be really helpful for some to identify the cause or reason for their way of thinking, their behaviour or the way their mind or emotions work.

But, it can also be a label that is used to judge both others and self

This label can also be used as an excuse for a specific behavioural pattern, to either justify or defend against unhealthy ways of being. 

This book helps to unpick some of these cultural and self-limiting biases. Looking at the historical and contemporary perspective of neuro-divergent ways of thinking and being can create a new narrative and thinking pattern to empower individuals to embrace and treasure their abilities as valuable assets or even super-powers.

If you fall into the category of ‘neuro-divergent’, Jenara Nerenberg helps to explain different forms of neuro-divergence that can co-exist or present in different ways for different individuals.

Working through the book can help you understand more about how and why you think, act and respond to what you do.

This book can help both those with neuro-divergent abilities and those who love and care for them, to be more understanding, forgiving and adaptive to specific needs – in a way that can enhance, empower and maximise a life well lived. 

This video (which will take you through to YouTube) is an introduction to the first Neurodiversity Project conference.  

Search on YouTube for other videos and interviews that Jenara has conducted on neuro-diversity

About Jenara Nerenberg

Jenara is the founder of The Nerovidersity Project. 

As a renowned journalist and author who discovered that she was neuro-divergent as an adult. This book is an extension of the research and interviews that she has conducted in her search for her own answers. 

Book Review Related Articles
Stolen Focus Article Header

Stolen Focus – Johann Hari

by AttentionBook Reviews

Johann Hari’s book is a summary of three years of research and interviewing specialists in a number of academic areas. The mission of his book is to investigate how technology is changing our ability to focus and pay attention.

Over the course of three years Johann Hari interviews a number of ‘experts’ in various disciplines, in an attempt to understand why and how our attention and focus have been ‘stolen’. 

The book provides extensive insights into what is happening to our attention and focus and worth a read if you want to gain some understanding of how technology is changing our brain structures and how we interact with the world around us.

His book begins with the trigger for why he started down the path of investigating why and how our focus has been stolen by technology. 

The research, and content of his book, investigate both sides of the coin, namely factors that have impacted our ability to resist the onslaught of technology and how tech giants are using technology to manipulate and use our attention for their own ends. 

Although he does often suggest that his interviewees are e.g. ‘arguably the world’s leading expert’ or ‘one of the leading experts in the world’, it is important to note that there are a number of experts in each of these academic and scientific areas who may be just as knowledgeable than those he has interviewed. 

The insights from the experts that Johann Hari brings into the public domain do give us a much clearer understanding of how technology is changing the way we work, play and live. The warnings are useful to note and consider when making decisions around technology use. The solutions he suggests, however, seem a little simplistic and do not seem to address the underlying issues e.g. locking your phone in a safe with a timer seems more like a ‘bandaid solution’ than a potential tool that can be used to change overall behaviour.  

Below are a number of interviews and talks that Johann Hari has given about his book ‘Stolen Focus’. A large portion of what he talks about in his book are covered in these interviews. 

In a blog post earlier this year, a review was done of his book based on a Guardian article write-up. The blog focussed on attention, rather than focus. You can read a bit more about this in the blog post.

You can find out more about his book Stolen Focus including some additional notes and snippets to his interviews on the Stolen Focus website. 

About Johann Hari:

Johann Hari is a journalist and author. You can read more about him on his official website. 

His book Stolen Focus is one of four that he has authored. 

Book Review Related Articles
permission to be bored

Give yourself permission to be bored

by Digital Brain

Prior to the introduction of the Blackberry and Smartphone, when we stood in queues, waited for a friend at a cafe or travelled on a train, we’d spend time thinking, contemplating, reading, reflecting, planning…. MRI scans on people given tasks to complete and then given nothing to do, showed that there is a middle section of the brain that lights up when we are ‘bored’, when our brain isn’t engaged in activities like social media scrolling, gaming, reading news, doing work, analysing data, etc. *

This part of the brain is generally what is used when we are engaged in self-reflection. This is when we get to process emotions, the events of the day, the social engagements we’ve had, how these have affected us, how we’ve dealt with things, and how we intend to deal with them in the future. If we do not allow our brands this ‘wandering time’, we are unlikely to engage in these self-reflection practices. 

What is fundamental about self-reflection, is that it is an essential ingredient in helping to reduce anxiety levels. 

Another element around technology use during down-time, is that the all to familiar left – right analogy of how our brain works isn’t quite how creative thinking and analytical reasoning works. MRI imaging has shown that distinct areas of our brain (on both the right and the left side) light up when we are thinking creatively and a different areas of our brain (on both the right and the left side) light up when we are thinking analytically. 

The interesting bit here is that the creative and analytical parts of our brain do not ‘light up’ at the same time. This means that as long as we are thinking analytically (or distracting ourselves with tasks or entertainment), the creative parts of our brain are dormant. 

This is why we often get creative ideas when we are in the shower, just as we are falling asleep or just waking up – there is nothing else distracting our brain, so the analytical parts turn off, giving the creative parts the ability to switch on. 

Why is this important? When we spend all our down-time distracting ourselves by staring at a screen, we are actively engaging the analytical parts of our brain. We are effectively silencing any creative or self-reflective thinking time. Being able to see things in new ways is an essential part of business innovation and personal change.

Without that, we tend spiral into stagnation. We copy others through lack of innovation. We produce the same results as everyone else – based on the same data and same analytics. We reduce our ability to be innovative. 

So, what can we do about it? We need to actively give ourselves time  in our day without phones, without technology, without distractions and just ‘be’. Give your brain room to slow down, to stretch, to explore. Give yourself the opportunity to be self-reflective, to be creative. 

A few things you can try: 

  • Try to leave your phone behind when you go out on your own. 
  • Leave your phone in another room for the day. 
  • Don’t use your technology as a constant stream of entertainment and distraction. 
  • Give yourself a few hours before going to bed without any technology – have a pen and paper handy to write down any tasks, ideas of things to remember when they come into your head. 
  • Try to not look at your phone first thing when you wake up – give yourself at least half and hour before switching on any technology to process what you need to do for the day. 

* If you want to know more about this you can read more about Ruth Lanius’s work on the ‘default state network (DSN)’ that Bressel Van Der Kolk refers to in his book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ (see from page 106 of the Physical Book or Chapter 6 within the Audible Book). 

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