Stolen Focus and Lost Decency!

We’re losing our manners.

Mr. Bean The Movie (1997)

I recently started reading Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari, and let’s just say… I feel seen. The 2022 book makes a surprisingly empathetic case for why our ability to concentrate has gone out the window… and spoiler alert: it’s not (entirely) our fault. Every chapter unpacks how forces like big tech and #girlboss hustle culture have collectively hijacked our brains.

I’ve already cried multiple times and I’m only halfway through. Turns out my lack of discipline is actually just a symptom of late-stage capitalism. There are powerful forces at work that want me this way. (Cue the conspiracy theorist accusations!)

As I read Johann’s words, I can feel myself spiraling a little. Hamster-on-a-wheel energy. The way he lays it out, the road to regaining our focus feels… bleak. We’re in a full-blown crisis, and yet most people either don’t notice—or worse, don’t care.

The book blends scientific research (which I’ll admit I haven’t independently verified), expert interviews (featuring folks I’ve never heard of), and personal stories (which hit hard) to make a pretty compelling case. His observations on how quickly things have unraveled since the rise of the internet—and then, later, smartphones and social media—are both depressing and clarifying. Each line hits like a text from an ex, only it’s the attention span I used to have.

Since reading it I deleted Instagram from my phone. (Yes, AGAIN.) And my screen time has gone from 8+ hours a day to 3.5 this week, leaving me with lots of time to observe my fellow New Yorkers as they go about their business. And some of what I’ve witnessed over the past few days is really bumming me out. Little things that to most feel inconsequential, but have legitimate consequences for other people.

Like the woman on my block who (phone in hand) absent-mindedly let her Doberman pee on the side of an A‑frame chalkboard sign outside of a ramen restaurant. To her, she was outside and doing nothing wrong. But any semi‑functioning member of society would pause to consider that the sign does not, in fact, live on the sidewalk. That sign goes inside at night. An overworked server is responsible for touching it at the end of their long shift and storing it right where customers eat. Her dog might as well have pissed on the restaurant floor.

There was also that guy on a crowded subway car heading downtown who was watching TikToks with no headphones, just scrolling on full volume. He was testing the limits of what the rest of us could silently endure before someone snapped. (No one did.) It wasn’t just rude—it was a bold-faced refusal to acknowledge that other people were existing in his public domain. Sir, this is not your apartment. This is a train. And none of us want to be here, let alone with you.

Or the countless people who placed their trash on top of neatly bagged garbage lined up for collection last night, as if each pile was some kind of communal offering altar. Let me be clear: those bags are closed. Tied shut! They are not “basically a trash can,” which is something I’ve heard said before. Your half‑eaten salad and mystery liquids are going to end up smeared across the street the second a rat clocks in for its night shift. Or a small gust of wind comes whooshing down the block. If you partake in this habit… you are actively littering.

And what kills me is that there is a public trash can on nearly every corner. Which means the behavior is less about logistics and more about a deeply unsettling belief that someone else will deal with it. Because someone always does. Be patient. Be courteous. And maybe—just maybe!!—consider that the city is not your personal dumping ground, and other people are not NPCs in the background of your walk home. They’re fully realized humans with their own unique set of trials and tribulations.

But Max, what do these incidents have to do with the book you’re reading about stolen focus?

The truth is, social media isn’t just stealing our focus… it’s slowly stripping away our manners, our sense of shared responsibility, and our ability to read a room (or sidewalk). When you spend all day filtering reality through a screen with a front-facing camera, it’s no wonder real-world consequences start to feel optional. We’ve become so fixated on self-optimization and curating our digital selves that we’re forgetting how to just be decent, unrecorded people in a shared space.

I’m not saying Instagram made you rude. But it seems to me (and to Johann!) that the platforms designed to hold our attention have rewired the way we engage with the world. The result is a generation of overstimulated and under-rested narcissists who are increasingly out of touch with the basic social contract.

I don’t have the solution (yet), but I do know we lived healthy fulfilling lives long before everyone had smart phones permanently glued to their hands. We knew our neighbors. Distrust didn’t run so rampant. And I really hope my generation isn’t the last to know it’s possible.