Daniel Goleman

And I see something very sinister in that, or rather not very admirable, which is that what's happened is attention has become a commodity.

Your attention is monetized.

Everybody's attention is monetized.

And I feel that the ability to stay in control of your own attention and not necessarily be sucked in by social media

is extremely important.

So I feel that attention training is an essential human skill now.

And it means that you're able to fight the beast, the beast being all of those things that are pulling you into social media or wherever for kind of mindless entertainment, but which captures your eyeball so they can count the number of people watching and then sell ads on that basis.

Well, there is a theory about that.

It comes from evolutionary psychology, and it is that the brain is an organ that evolved to help us survive.

So it wants to notice, react to, and remember things that might be a threat.

That's the way the brain is designed.

So we're more likely to remember, for example, the argument we had with that person than the good time we had with that person.

That's the way the brain is designed.

And in evolution, it meant that the brain was helpful for survival.

And the whole basic theory of evolutionary psychology is that whatever helps us survive is sticky.

And so the brain is designed around exactly what you're saying.

As with any skill, like I want to be a good basketball player.

I want to be good at golf.

You have to practice.

So the more you practice, the easier it becomes to pull your attention away.