Last month, my friend Debora Rolls and I talked politics, religion and books.

We discovered we both had picked up copies of Johann Hari’s “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again.”

However, neither of us had sat down to read it. Why not? We had been too busy with other distractions.

After a hearty laugh, we both resolved to dive into it. And it has changed how I look and think about the world.

Even before I started reading it, I had begun turning my smartphone off earlier and earlier each evening. I had deleted the TikTok app since the banality of the content was making me dumber.

In the past year, I’ve read more books than in the last five. Yet, I was still on edge and feeling pulled in multiple directions.

Likewise, Hari had taken a three-month detox from his phone. Yet, once it ended, he........

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