This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
There are so many universals in the human experience.
Hunger, thirst, lust, fear.
They drive us as much as they did humans a hundred, a thousand, or even a hundred thousand years ago.
But there are also experiences that feel unique to our current moment that only modern humans have encountered.
Among them, the many competing forces desperately seeking our attention.
The social media and news apps pushing alerts to our phones, the streaming tv services, and, yes, podcasts offering us endless opportunities to binge our favorite shows.
All this clamoring for our attention can be exhausting.
It reminded us of an episode we did a little while back about how our attention is being constantly harvested and hijacked.
Esther Bly grew up with a mom who kept her kitchen free from food coloring and high fructose corn syrup.
Esther's lunchbox was subject to the same rules.
So I would have snap peas, I would have an orange.
Sometimes it would be leftovers and one maybe like, gummy snack, but it would only be like, health gummy.
Of course, Esther craved the processed snacks and cereals that her classmates were eating.
Television commercials fueled her desire.
One of her favorites was for Trix yogurt.
It's black and white.
Hey, a package from home.
Trix rabbit is inside this costume.