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AlexSchell comments on Group Rationality Diary, January 1-15 - Less Wrong
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I usually don't make enough eye contact with people, so I tried the eye contact exercise described by Nick Winter, which involves pairing up with someone unfamiliar and gazing into each other's eyes for 15 minutes. This was just a week ago, and I already noticed mild improvements in my ability to maintain eye contact. I haven't yet noticed anything as dramatic as described by Winter or Luke (who did a much more intense version of this exercise, starting over when eye contact was broken), though to be fair both accounts sound like the effect did not get noticed immediately.
If you look in between of people's eyes, instead of directly into them, most people won't notice and you should get less distracted. This might even make staring a bit too easy and people might get uncomfortable if you're not careful.
"Eye contact" is a misleading term. People who say they want more eye contact don't mean they want you to look at their eyes for extended periods of time. It helps to move your gaze to a different part of their face every five seconds or so.
I did this over 3 years ago, and I still notice the effect today. I look directly in people's eyes much more.
Whether this is a good or bad things is debatable. I have seen that it makes me more noticed in (small) crowd. If a teacher or presenter is saying something, my default is to make eye contact. They usually maintain this for a bit, and from then on tend to speak more at me than others.
I do sometimes have to consciously break eye contact, because very prolonged eye contact does make some people uncomfortable.