It’s a cold January morning; we’ve just finished our summative assessments. Feeling unmotivated and exhausted, we are unsure about how to get back into the swing of Spring Semester. That’s where Emma Louth Als comes in. A researcher in developmental neuroscience, public speaker, and author, Als joins us over Teams to discuss her new book, Focus. Aimed primarily at students, Focus uses scientific research to explain how to study effectively in an increasingly distracted world – the medicine we need just before heading into our final semester at UEA. 

Als’ academic background is in biomedicine, with her PhD research surrounding foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or, as she puts it, “what drinking does to the brain”. Born in Canada to British parents, she now lives in Denmark and is an avid baker alongside her scientific work. “I have recipes from Canada and England and Denmark,” she laughs, “I put them together as a ‘book’. Apparently, I’m just a nerd for collecting data!”  

Writing her own book, however, was never part of the plan. Als says she had long been intrigued by the idea of “focus” and was particularly “interested in attention spans.” “I really wanted to tackle the idea: are our attention spans actually shrinking?” After delivering a TED talk titled Does your kid have the attention span of a goldfish?, she was approached by Bloomsbury to write Focus. As well as being “a lot of fun”, Als’ work as a public speaker also inspired her “to write a bit more,” and to “be able to communicate [her] science.” “It’s all well and good that I sit in some basement poking at neurons,” she says, “it needs to come out into the real world.” Just like that, Focus was born.

The writing process, however, was not without its challenges. Als worked tirelessly to ensure that the scientific studies underpinning her advice were accessible and easy to read. Luckily, she found a cheat-code. I was “trying to tell studies like a story. People really like stories,” she explains, “they’re what stick with us the most.” The main obstacles she faced arose when she ventured into particularly complicated areas, such as “neuroimaging or brain synchronisation.” These were “really complex” concepts, she admits, and “I wasn’t even in that specific field, so it was hard to write about.” 

This effort pays off. Focus moves beyond scientific theory, transforming difficult research into concise, evidence-based study tips that are both usable and reliable. Asked to choose a favourite piece of advice from the book, Als doesn’t hesitate. “How you train your brain in your free time is going to seriously affect you,” she says. “If you sit and scroll on your phone, training your brain to pay attention for 10 seconds at a time, you should not be surprised when you struggle to sit through a class that’s an hour long.” Her solution is simple: “find a hobby, something that interests you, and spend at least half an hour focusing on it” every day. “It doesn’t matter if it’s reading, or drawing, it could be anything,” she insists, “do something you’re passionate about.”

Als’ understanding of focus is also shaped by her lived experiences with language. Speaking Danish as a second language, she became noticeably aware to just how cognitively demanding attention can be. At family gatherings with her husband’s Danish relatives, she explains, she “can’t pay attention to multiple conversations,” something she can easily manage in English. Rather than feeling excluded, Als instead found this challenge illuminating. “It gave me an appreciation of how much mental energy you can spend on something,” a central concern of Focus.

This awareness of how easily attention can be overworked also influences Als’ views on digital culture. Social media, she argues, is significantly responsible for short attention spans. “We do it to sort of relax, to tune out,” she says, “but it’s not helping with that because it’s actually stimulating your brain.” While Als is careful not to “lecture people” about phone usage, she warns that constant screen time prevents the brain from “getting the rest or calm that it needs.” 

Als is similarly cautious about the recent widespread use of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Though acknowledging that “it can really open up horizons” and “help you to brainstorm”, Als reminds us that it “gives you easy answers and it gives you those answers quickly,” erasing the cognitive processes involved in learning. This means that “a whole network in the brain that is supposed to be formed” may never fully develop. A 2025 HEPI survey revealed that 88% of students now use AI in their assessments, a significant increase from 53% the previous year. This trend prompts Als to urge students to “be careful about how you integrate AI” into academic work. 

Returning to her work as a public speaker, Als recalls delivering “talks with librarians” to encourage people who feel they have lost their focus in the digital age to “get back into reading.” In this light, and in true Concrete Books fashion, the conversation ends with Als’ reading recommendations. For non-fiction, Als suggests Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Exploring how the brain makes decisions, Als really enjoyed how Kahneman got “more into statistics in the later chapters,” examining how prejudiced decision-making functions in the real world. Fiction-wise, Als is unapologetically straightforward. “I’m a very boring reader,” she laughs, “I read Agatha Christie. I like my murder mysteries.”

As our conversation draws to a close, we thank Als for her time, and for making us a little wiser to the ways in which the digital age is damaging our ability to focus. In 2026, perhaps the solution is simple. Why not put down your phone and pick up the book that waits patiently on your nightstand? You never know what surprises you might find there.

Focus by Emma Louth Als is out now in paperback and audiobook. You can purchase it from Bloomsbury here.

Image Credit: Lily Webber and Polly Dye