Ian Sample

speaker

2,123 appearances 29 recordings 3 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 2d ago

Ian Sample’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 29 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 8.

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Science Weekly · We’re reading less. And it’s making us stupid · 11 Aug 2026 podcast

And that's actually up on last year. matched

So matched

I don't think it's all lost. matched

I think what is interesting is to keep an eye on this and to see what's going to happen with all the digital devices that we're now using and if that's going to lead to more sort of fragmented attention spans, people just not having the time. matched

for reading but also you know it leads to this suspicion people have talked about are we entering a post-literate world where we are so obsessed and feel so much of our time watching like little clips on social media or you know listen to podcasts watching short videos and matched

Fogg takes this point seriously, and a lot of his concern is around how passive that is. matched

Obviously, if you're reading a book, you're being handed the words, but your brain is building the world, whereas it's not the same if you're just handed a movie or something like that. matched

And he was also concerned about our interactions with AI and chatbots, with them being passive as well. matched

It does seem that if you're not using your brain in this way and the way that reading exercises it, those faculties are going to sort of matched

They're going to wane a bit and you will, you know, have sort of less sharper cognition as a result of it. matched

I mean, Falk was telling me about these tests called PISA tests. matched

Now, PISA tests are given to school children 15 years old around the world. matched

They're chosen at random and they sit these tests and they measure expertise in math, science and reading. matched

And in recent years, the reading scores in developed countries have been going down. matched

folk has this concern that if this is the way it's going that we're just going to end up with these sort of weaker critical thinking skills these weaker critical literacy as well where we sort of can pick apart where there's power in in in writing and who's trying to achieve what from what's being written so that you know this can apply to non-fiction like the documents who's trying to steer me to do this and that and those skills are more important than we might realize matched

Totally. matched

I mean, you want now to be able to tell whether you're being told the truth or not or whether what you're being told is at least sensible or not. matched

Okay, well, I mean, most people will have had that experience where they're reading a book and they don't want it to end. matched

And you're so immersed in the world that you don't want to be ejected back into the real world. matched

And that immersion is when all this really interesting cognitive stuff is happening, right? matched

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