All episodes of The High Performance Podcast

The High Performance Podcast · 2026-03-13 · 53 min · 10,964 words

Your Attention is Being Stolen — and Here's How to Take it Back | Johann Hari

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player

Attention is your absolute superpower. You can try having self-control, but every time you do, there are 10,000 engineers on the other side of the the screen trying to undermine your self-control. Something I kept seeing with the people in Silicon Valley, the people who designed this world, is how sick with guilt and shame they feel about what they've done. Know that your attention is being stolen from you by some really big and powerful forces. and know that we can take it back.

What if your phone isn't just distracting you? It's actually making you depressed. Our guest today is Johan Hari. He's a New York Times bestselling author whose TED talk has been viewed over 80 million times. He spent years traveling the world investigating depression, anxiety

and why we can't pay attention. Interviewing neuroscientists, Silicon Valley insiders, and leading psychiatrists to understand what's really going wrong. And his conclusion is as uncomfortable as it is urgent. Our attention is being systematically stolen. Our values have been corrupted.

That is the first couple of minutes. The rest is $1.49.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (53 minutes, 10,964 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.

get it now

Ready in under two minutes.

credits never expire

Packs go up to 1,000 episodes. Need more? Email contact@podmenti.com and we will make you one.

One episode is up to 4 hours of audio; a longer one counts as one more for every started 4 hours. Secure checkout by Stripe. Paying once needs no account: we create one from your email. By paying you agree to the terms.