Johann Hari on Stolen Focus and Attention
The One You Feed
Eric Zimmer
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2022
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Johann Hari is a writer and journalist. He has written for the New York Times, Le Monde, the Guardian, and other newspapers and his TED talks have been viewed over seventy million times. His work has been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah Winfrey to Noam Chomsky to Joe Rogan.
Eric and Johann discuss his book, Stolen Focus Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again
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Johann Hari and I Discuss Stolen Focus and Attention and…
- His book, Stolen Focus Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again
- His experience of spending 3 months with no internet or smartphone
- The negative effects of consuming too much of social media
- How the evidence is showing we are in an attention crisis
- The deep forces at work that are damaging our attention
- Understanding the two levels of response to the attention crisis; individual and collective
- Cruel optimism is offering a simple solution to complex problems that may not work
- The alternative to cruel optimism is bringing awareness to the many layers of the problem
- How the human brain can only think about one thing at a time
- The negative effects of multitasking, or the switch cost-effect
- The debate between being “pro” tech and “anti” tech
- The damaging effects of the current business models of social media designed to steal people’s attention
- How technology could be used to heal and aid your attention rather than steal it
- How the current model of economic growth contributes to dwindling attention
- His thoughts on the need for an attention movement to resist the forces invading our attention
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Most things worth saying will not be agreed with immediately. |
| 0:03.4 | Probably if everyone agrees with you straight away what you're saying didn't need to be said. |
| 0:14.8 | Welcome to the one you feed. |
| 0:16.8 | Throughout time great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. |
| 0:21.4 | Quotes like garbage in garbage out or you are what you think ring true. |
| 0:27.0 | And yet for many of us our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. |
| 0:31.4 | We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy or fear. |
| 0:36.0 | We see what we don't have instead of what we do. |
| 0:39.0 | We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. |
| 0:42.4 | But it's not just about thinking. |
| 0:44.4 | Our actions matter. |
| 0:45.9 | It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. |
| 0:50.7 | This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. |
| 0:55.1 | How they feed their good walls. |
| 1:11.6 | Where were you in 92 bouncing your butt to Sir Mixla? |
| 1:14.6 | Wondering if you like Billy Ray Cyrus could pull off a moment. |
| 1:17.4 | Now I had as a podcast all about it. |
| 1:19.6 | I'm Jason Longfied and on my new show Where Were You in 92 we take a ride through the major hits. |
| 1:23.9 | One hit wonders and shocking scandals that shaped the wildest 12 months of music history. |
| 1:27.6 | You know the president came after me everybody time Warner with madness. |
| 1:32.3 | Music was magic and I had completely burned that to the ground. |
| 1:36.5 | I realize I'm the forbidden fruit. |
... |
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