The former Google and Uber recruiting leader offers a practical, compassionate guide to taking back attention in a world designed to keep us connected.
For millions of people, the day begins before they ever get out of bed. A notification appears. A message needs checking. One quick look at social media becomes ten minutes of scrolling. Before long, the outside world has entered the room before the person holding the phone has had a chance to enter their own day.
Heather Henderson believes there is another way.
Her new book, “Reclaim: How to Stop Scrolling Through Your Life and Start Living It,” launches September 22, 2026, offering readers a timely examination of how technology shapes attention and a practical path toward using it more intentionally. Rather than telling people to abandon their devices or retreat from modern life, Henderson asks them to reconsider who is making the choices behind their daily digital habits.
At the heart of “Reclaim” is a deceptively simple question: Did I choose this, or was it chosen for me?
It is a question informed by Henderson’s unusual vantage point. A former recruiting leader at Google and Uber, she spent more than a decade recruiting talent for companies including Visa, Accenture, Google, and Uber. Her career gave her a view of both sides of the screen: the people building digital technology and the people learning to live alongside it.
That perspective makes “Reclaim” something different from a rejection of technology.
Henderson recognizes the opportunities technology has created. What concerns her is what happens when convenience quietly becomes control, when a tool meant to serve us begins directing where our attention goes.
In the book, Henderson explores the ways technology can amplify whatever hooks a user emotionally. A feed does not simply reflect what someone consciously chooses. It learns from pauses, clicks, swipes and reactions, gradually refining the content most likely to keep that person looking. The result can be an increasingly narrow digital environment shaped around what activates attention.
The consequences are easy to overlook precisely because they can seem so ordinary.
Another notification. Another video. Another email. Another scroll while waiting in line. Individually, these moments appear insignificant. Collectively, they can consume the spaces where reflection, boredom, conversation and creativity once lived.
Henderson knows the feeling personally. In “Reclaim,” she writes candidly about the pressures of an always-on professional culture and the gradual realization that constant connectivity was taking a toll on her own life. Her experiences eventually helped her see that knowing the standard advice about notifications, boundaries and screen time was not enough. She had to understand what she was seeking when she reached for a device in the first place.
That distinction gives the book its compassionate tone.
“Reclaim” does not frame distracted people as failures of discipline. Henderson instead argues that people have adapted to a digital environment intentionally designed to capture and hold attention. Her goal is to help readers recognize that environment and restore choice within it.
The changes she proposes are often surprisingly small: a morning before reaching for the phone, a meal with the device put away, a walk without constant input, or a few minutes of waiting without automatically filling the silence.
Small choices, Henderson suggests, can become something larger. They can rebuild a sense of agency.
That may be why “Reclaim” arrives at such a relevant moment. Technology is becoming more integrated into everyday life, not less. The challenge is no longer simply whether people will use digital tools. It is whether they can use those tools without surrendering the parts of life that cannot be replicated on a screen.
“Reclaim” offers a reminder that attention is not merely a productivity resource.
It is where life happens.
And choosing where it goes may be one of the most important choices we make.
“Reclaim: How to Stop Scrolling Through Your Life and Start Living It” releases September 22, 2026.
Learn more about Heather Henderson at iamheatherh.com.
