What Johann Hari Gets Wrong About Focus
A Critique from an ADHD and Executive Function Coach
If you’ve ever felt like your attention is fraying or that you’re drowning in distraction, Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus might seem like a timely diagnosis of a modern crisis. But if you’re someone who lives with ADHD or supports people who do, it’s not just the distraction crisis you’re trying to understand. You’re trying to navigate a brain that’s wired differently and in spite of its popularity, Stolen Focus doesn’t quite get that.
As a coach specialising in ADHD, executive function challenges, and sustainable success, I want to break down where Stolen Focus misses the mark, especially when compared to the evidence-based books of experts like Dr. Russell Barkley and the work of Jeff Copper of DIG Coaching. Let’s unpack the blindspots, biases, and borrowed ideas that weaken Hari’s argument and leave those of us with neurodivergent brains underserved.
1. The book leans heavily on personal stories, anecdotes and emotional triggers
Hari opens the book with a personal story about his godson, Adam, who is lost in a fog of screens and social media. It’s emotive. It’s VERY relatable. But it sets the tone for the rest of the book, building more on dramatic narratives than cognitive science… or fact.
Storytelling is a powerful way to get people engaging with science and change, but Hari’s reliance on emotion instead of reasoning introduces what Jeff Copper would call “cognitive shortcut thinking” – reacting to the story’s emotional weight without evaluating the underlying mechanisms of attention or what attention is.
In coaching and executive function work, we coach clients to observe their own thinking, not just feel overwhelmed by it. When we add in some empowerment work, clients can actually choose how they respond to their emotions, instead of reacting.
The book is frustrating as someone who really loves the human brain and how cool so much of our current research is:
2. Too much ‘systemic doom’ and very little personal agency
One of Hari’s central claims is that our attention isn’t broken because we’re lazy or undisciplined. Instead it’s being stolen by tech, capitalism, and the pace of modern life.
There’s some truth to that (algorithmic design does exploit our attention), Hari often swings too far into fatalism, appealing to an emotional reaction again.
He writes: “This is being done to us.” (Anyone spot the drama triangle role in there?) But this is only half the picture at most.
Jeff Copper emphasizes that executive function challenges are best supported not by railing against the system but by understanding how your brain works, what triggers overwhelm, and how to design around it. Just because the ‘system’ is set up doesn’t mean we have to follow it – that makes it convenient for others but disables us.
Dr Barkley’s work supports this: ADHD isn’t ‘distraction’, it’s a developmental impairment in self-regulation and the management of goal-directed behavior over time. Sure, everyone is more prone to distraction but are we genuinely powerless here?
Yes, systemic forces matter. But agency, self-acceptance, accommodation, and self-awareness are more powerful tools than blame. Especially when your brain is already wired to escape what feels effortful.
3. The ADHD Chapter Is Shallow and Muddled
Chapter 13, which deals with the “rise” of ADHD, might be one of the most problematic parts of the book.
Hari questions whether ADHD is overdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or even a medical condition at all. He leans heavily on critics like Dr. Sami Timimi, arguing that ADHD is a ‘social label’ more than a neurological reality. We know that there’s variability within the diagnostic criteria but I’ve met so many people who would be seriously struggling with ADHD even if they lived in a strict Amish settlement with zero technology, etc – it’s offensively lazy.
But Hari doesn’t balance this with the mountain of peer-reviewed research, much of it led by Dr. Barkley, confirming that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder rooted in the executive function system of the brain.
To pretend that one side doesn’t exist when the one focused on is opinion rather than fact just creates confusion, especially for readers who might be in the early stages of understanding their own diagnosis.
It also encourages the popular ‘it’s not a disability’ stigma: the implication that ADHD is a weakness or moral failing or a culturally convenient excuse.
In contrast, Dr Barkley’s research clearly outlines that ADHD involves:
4. Borrowed Ideas, Barely Integrated
Many of Hari’s arguments are recycled from more rigorous, original thinkers:
- The concept of “cruel optimism” comes from Lauren Berlant
- Flow state theory is lifted from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I learned how to say his name as ‘chick-sent-me-high-lyi’ – hope that helps!)
- The attention-philosophy framework borrows heavily from James Williams
Hari rarely credits these frameworks with the depth they deserve. He uses them as proof points instead of integrating them into a coherent understanding of how the brain actually works.
For contrast, in Jeff Copper’s cognitive ergonomics model, which draws heavily on Dr Barkley’s work and combines it with Six Sigma problem-solving method, these ideas are approached as integral parts of his highly original system.
You don’t just point at dopamine. You analyse how urges arise, how they relate to discomfort, and why managing attention requires energy, scaffolding, and design.
Stolen Focus never really gets that far. It just settles for an emotional gut punch and calls it insight. It’s designed to appeal to the ‘feelings’ that are at the root of so many people’s focus problems!
5.The Energy Cost: Flow, Boot-Up, and Attention Switching
Hari talks a lot about flow, a deep, immersive state of attention, as if it’s just a matter of removing distractions. But he ignores one crucial fact:
Getting into flow takes energy. It takes ‘boot-up’ time. It takes cognitive space.
Copper and Barkley’s work explains that neurodivergent people often struggle with transitioning into a task, not because they’re lazy, but because their executive functions must manually boot up each time. This uses a lot of ‘brain tokens’ or energy – it’s a metabolically costly process. And once you’re in flow, any interruption resets the entire effort.
This is why multitasking or context switching is so damaging, not just for productivity but for your sense of capability and eventually, your belief you can rely on yourself to get things done.
Hari notes that the average adult can only stay on a task for three minutes. But he doesn’t explain why. And without understanding the why, his solutions feel shallow at best.
6. Digital Detox: is it scaleable?
Hari famously took himself offline for three months to test whether he could restore his focus. The answer? Kind of… but wow, is that rooted in privilege?
But what about people with jobs, children, or executive dysfunction?
What about people who need their phones and watches to remind them of appointments, who use them to access tools to help regulate anxiety, or stay connected with people who support them in a world that doesn’t accommodate their differences?
A better question: How can we create attention-friendly environments that don’t rely on people having to escape so they can focus?
This is where Jeff Copper’s “cognitive design from the inside out” approach really shines. Instead of just banishing tech, he teaches:
- How to notice your urges (rather than shame them)
- How to structure work with friction and flow
- How to reduce cognitive load with externalised systems
- How to build an adaptive attention strategy that works with your brain, not against it
Did you notice how that isn’t tugging at your heart strings though? The appeal to emotion, to using story, to believing the feelings is where Hari really lets people down.
7. Calling for a social rebellion without the ‘how’
Hari ends the book with a call for an “Attention Rebellion”, a movement to challenge societal structures that are eroding our ability to think deeply. It’s a noble vision even if it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
The problem is that if you’re already struggling with executive function challenges, a grand social vision won’t help you get through your inbox. Or prep your kids’ lunches. Or manage the discomfort of beginning a difficult project which, in turn, pays your mortgage that month.
Social change matters. But so does scaffolding. So do personal accommodations. So does effective coaching.
Without offering readers practical, research-backed strategies for self-leadership and sustainable focus, Hari’s ‘rebellion’ is more Byres Road Cappucino squad talking shop than actionable social change.
I always come back to Jay Perry’s definition of coaching – ‘it is love and wonder that leads to effective action’. I’m sure the ‘attention rebellion’ is a great, catchy idea but is it effective?
Final Thoughts: Why This Matters for People with ADHD
If you’re living with ADHD or executive function challenges, you don’t need another book to tell you the world is distracting. I’d argue MOST adults and kids know this, ADHD or not. You definitely do not need a book that tends to the melodramatic, “we’re all doomed”, drama of this one.
You need:
- Ideas that explain how your brain works that you can understand and are based on facts.
- Tools or ‘scaffolding’ that helps you shift from emotional reactivity to response, based on a deliberate choice
- Environments and social systems that reduce the ‘tax’ of thinking when there’s no real need or value to it
- Coaches and communities who see your strengths without denying your challenges
Jeff Copper’s work at DIG Coaching, and Dr. Barkley’s decades of research offer frameworks that go deeper than critique to offer a way forward based on experience and effectiveness. Hari may be asking the right questions, even if the answers in the book are trite.
If you want real answers? You need a different conversation.
Want more practical support in understanding your own attention challenges? I work with intelligent, creative adults who are ready to stop shaming themselves and start designing lives that work with their brains. Explore my coaching packages or get in touch for a free consultation.
Learn more about Jeff Copper Coaching
Dr Russel Barkley’s Youtube Channel (with weekly research reviews).
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