Johann Hari: Why you can't pay attention

Award-winning writer Johann Hari explores why we have lost our ability to focus and, most importantly, how we can get it back.

Inability to focus can feel like a personal failing – a flaw in each one of us. In his acclaimed latest book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again, award-winning writer and journalist Johann Hari posits that our failure to focus is not personal, but a social phenomenon caused by powerful external forces. Our focus has been stolen.

In this special digital lecture recorded at the Wheeler Centre for the Big Anxiety Festival, Hari will share his discoveries following a three-year journey interviewing leading experts on attention and uncovering the reasons behind our shortening attention spans.

Don’t miss this timely event about how – as individuals, and as a society – we can get our focus back, if we are determined to fight for it.

Image Credit: Kathrin Baumbach

Presented in partnership with the Wheeler Centre, RMIT Culture and UNSW as part of The Big Anxiety.

This digital event will be available for the duration of The Big Anxiety, 9am Wed 21 Sep to 11.59pm Sat 15 Oct.

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RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

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aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

More information