I was introduced briefly to this concept by Matthew B. Crawford in [The Cost of Paying Attention] (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opinion/sunday/the-cost-of-paying-attention.html). He wrote a book on the idea, but I never got to it.

The gist of it if I remember correctly is that our attention is a scarce resource, and it is being hijacked by advertising in more Insidious ways than ever. We can't fill up our car with gas without being subjected to something like Entertainment Tonight on the pump.

My admittely flippant Idea that this has anything to do with parenting is that it takes a great deal of attention, and safeguarding and investing that attention into the family is a skill that may be taken for granted by some people who do it well, and a skill some families may benefit from adopting.