Joseph D'Agnese's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I had begun to worry about my social media consumption when I came across this book.

As a science journalist, I had interviewed Lanier in the past. So I knew his work, and I knew he always had something profound to say about technology. You can tell that this is a personal book for him. Many times he refers to his children, and he worries about how social media impacts them.

He enumerates several reasons why social media is destroying our minds, our attention spans, our self-esteem, and our decency. Lanier has consulted with most of the major firms that have foisted social media on us, so he knows the players and he knows how much better the technology can be, if only its creators did not capitulate to greed.

I recommend pairing this book with a viewing of the documentaries, The Social Dilemma and Fake Famous. After seeing those documentaries and reading the three books I recommend on this page, I deleted my social media accounts for good, preferring to focus on my work and family instead.

In recent years many of my friends—longtime book lovers—have confided to me that they no longer have the ability to concentrate for long hours digesting a great book.

I was beginning to feel the same way! Journalist Johann Hari noticed the same instincts in himself, and decided to do something about it. In a three-month experiment, he left his phone and the internet behind, and discovered that much of his capacity for long walks, long reading sessions, and uncluttered thinking returned. Then he set out to find out why.

He traveled around the world interviewing various scientists who explained that it’s not as easy as unplugging. The modern world exerts massive influence over our brains. We are negatively impacted by everything from the 24-hour news cycle to questionable ingredients in our food to artificial lighting.

By the time I started this book, I was already leaning toward ditching social media, but as Hari illustrates, that is only the first step, accounting for perhaps 1/14th of what’s truly ailing us. I highly recommend this book for those of us seeking to understand the science behind our shattered attention spans.

I’m a world-class procrastinator. Some might say I’m high-functioning, in the sense that I manage to accomplish quite a lot of work, just not always on the projects I say are important to me.

Pressfield’s book has become a classic for those of us who work in creative fields. I’d heard about it for years, but never took the leap until recently. It’s very powerful, a little like having a very tough coach breathing down your neck, pushing you to do better.

Pressfield boils the creative person’s problem down to one thing—resistance—which I now regard as a dark force within us all that sentences us to ordinary life. Why chase your dreams of being an artist when it’s safer not to try? Why bother going to the gym? Why waste time meditating? Why lift a finger to do any of the things that you think will enrich your life when you can simply not challenge yourself, and not change?

The book is structured as a series of short, rapid-fire chapters. Some are anecdotes. Others are tough love mantras. If you don’t mind Pressfield’s macho vibe and his penchant for occasional profanity, I think you’ll like this book, which has racked up nearly 100,000 positive reviews on Goodreads alone!

I don’t necessarily recommend the later books in this series. They come off as repetitive; everything you need you will find in this volume. It’s just under 200 pages, so you should be able to read this book in two hours, max. A small time investment to see if its message resonates with you.