Inside Education and Health Sciences

By Carly Olson '27

Attention is a more complex issue than simply what is occupying one’s mind and senses in a given moment in time. In his book Stolen Focus, Johann Hari identifies four distinct layers to describe attention: spotlight, starlight, daylight, and stadium light. 

When taking these different forms of focus and attention into consideration, I’m able to better understand how attention and its different layers of involvement look in my life. Furthermore, this reflection enables me to be more aware of what I’m paying attention to and try to adjust to avoid things like overwhelming stress and burnout. 

Prior to reading Stolen Focus, I understood attention to be defined by what exactly I was looking at, listening to, and thinking about. For example, I would say that as I am writing this essay, I am paying attention to the words on the screen, the keys under my fingers, and the ideas in my head. According to Hari, my understanding of attention was limited to what they call spotlight focus, the “first layer” of attention, amounting to my focus on immediate actions. 

Despite being the most basic, spotlight focus has a great deal to do with functionality of day-to-day life. I sometimes find it hard to focus the spotlight on the task at hand. Metaphorically, I move the spotlight around on stage, or widen it to include far too much when what I’m really wanting to do is focus on the assignment, chore, or activity I’m engaged in. This distraction so often comes in the form of my phone, and I have been trying different techniques to prevent technology from pulling my focus away from the task at hand.

The next layer of attention is starlight, which is the focus you put on long-term projects and goals. When I think about what I want to do with my life, I think about how I want to graduate from college and become a teacher and eventually earn my master's. These things fall under my starlight focus. Shifting into starlight focus is something that keeps my goals in perspective. When I find myself feeling overwhelmed by my course load, I can (as Hari says) “look up to the stars” and remember why I’m doing all of this in the first place. It helps me stay on track and remember that everything I’m doing has a purpose and direction, no matter how monotonous it may seem. In this way, my starlight focus helps me balance my spotlight focus by allowing me to remember the bigger picture. 

The next layer of attention is called daylight, which is “the form of focus that makes it possible for you to know what your longer-term goals are in the first place." The daylight layer of attention is the thing that gives me drive and direction in the first place, and it is the layer that requires knowing myself, my motivations, and the values that drive my goals. If I lose sight of why it’s important to me to attend college, to become a teacher, or to do anything else, every other layer of attention loses its meaning. Having a strong reason behind why I’m doing what I’m doing is the reason I have the motivation to do anything at all. 

The final layer of attention is our stadium lights. This layer of attention refers to our focus on goals in regards to other people. When there is a loss of this layer, people are all focused on individualistic goals and not those which relate to other people and serve to benefit humanity as a whole. Being in school for education has provided me with examples of this. I’m able to think about and discuss what education should look like for future generations, and the role my classmates and I will play in that. My stadium light focus appears when I remind myself that I am a part of a bigger whole, and being a teacher is more than just a career choice. 

I only truly have an understanding of my direction in life when I have a grasp on all four areas of focus. I believe understanding these layers will enable me to lead a more productive, focused, and intentional life.