Your Undivided Attention
Episodes
The Power of Solutions Journalism — with Tina Rosenberg and Hélène Biandudi Hofer
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the goal of our digital information environment? Is it simply to inform us, or also to empower us to act? The Solutions Journalism Network (S...
Do You Want to Become a Vampire? — with L.A. Paul
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we decide whether to undergo a transformative experience when we don’t know how that experience will change us? This is the central question ...
You Will Never Breathe the Same Again — with James Nestor
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When author and journalist James Nestor began researching a piece on free diving, he was stunned. He found that free divers could hold their breath fo...
A Facebook Whistleblower — with Sophie Zhang
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In September of 2020, on her last day at Facebook, data scientist Sophie Zhang posted a 7,900-word memo to the company's internal site. In it, she des...
A Problem Well-Stated is Half-Solved — with Daniel Schmachtenberger
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve explored many different problems on Your Undivided Attention — addiction, disinformation, polarization, climate change, and more. But what i...
[Unedited] A Problem Well-Stated is Half-Solved — with Daniel Schmachtenberger
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve explored many different problems on Your Undivided Attention — addiction, disinformation, polarization, climate change, and more. But what i...
Mr. Harris Zooms to Washington
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Back in January 2020, Tristan Harris went to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congress on the harms of social media. A few weeks ago, he re...
Can Your Reality Turn on a Word? — with Anthony Jacquin
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can hypnosis be a tool to help us see how our minds are being shaped and manipulated more than we realize? Guest Anthony Jacquin is a hypnotist and hy...
The Stubborn Optimist's Guide Revisited — with Christiana Figueres (Rerun)
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
[This episode originally aired May 21, 2020] Internationally-recognized global leader on climate change Christiana Figueres argues that the battle aga...
Mind the (Perception) Gap — with Dan Vallone
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What do you think the other side thinks? Guest Dan Vallone is the Director of More in Common U.S.A., an organization that’s been asking Democrats an...
Spotlight — Coded Bias
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The film Coded Bias follows MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini through her investigation of algorithmic discrimination, after she accidentally di...
Come Together Right Now — with Shamil Idriss
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How many technologists have traveled to Niger, or the Balkans, or Rwanda, to learn the lessons of peacebuilding? Technology and social media are creat...
Disinformation Then and Now — with Camille François
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Disinformation researchers have been fighting two battles over the last decade: one to combat and contain harmful information, and one to convince the...
The Courage to Connect — with Ciaran O’Connor and John Wood, Jr.
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s no revelation that Americans aren’t getting along. But it’s easier to diagnose the problem than come up with solutions. The organization Br...
A Renegade Solution to Extractive Economics — with Kate Raworth
11 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Kate Raworth began studying economics, she was disappointed that the mainstream version of the discipline didn’t fully address many of the worl...
Two Million Years in Two Hours: A Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yuval Noah Harari is one of the rare historians who can give us a two-million-year perspective on today’s headlines. In this wide-ranging conversati...
Won't You Be My Neighbor? A Civic Vision for the Internet — with Eli Pariser
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve heard us talk before on this podcast about the pitfalls of trying to moderate a “global public square.” Our guest today, Eli Pariser, co-...
Are the Kids Alright? — with Jonathan Haidt
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are in the midst of a teen mental health crisis. Since 2011, the rate of U.S. hospitalizations for preteen girls who have self-harmed is up 189 per...
Your Nation's Attention for the Price of a Used Car — with Zahed Amanullah
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s extremists don’t need highly produced videos like ISIS. They don’t need deep pockets like Russia. With the right message, a fringe organ...
Spotlight: The Social Dilemma
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new documentary called The Social Dilemma comes out on Netflix today, September 9, 2020. We hope that this film, full of interviews with tech inside...
Facebook Goes '2Africa' — with Julie Owono
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This summer, Facebook unveiled “2Africa,” a subsea cable project that will encircle nearly the entire continent of Africa — much to the surprise...
When Media Was for You and Me — with Fred Turner
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1940, a group of 60 American intellectuals formed the Committee for National Morale. “They’ve largely been forgotten,” says Fred Turner, a pr...
Digital Democracy Is Within Reach — with Audrey Tang
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine a world where every country has a digital minister and technologically-enabled legislative bodies. Votes are completely transparent and audio ...
Spotlight — Beyond the Boycott
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
#StopHateforProfit is an important first step, but we need to go much further. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for inf...
The World According to Q — with Travis View
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What would inspire someone to singlehandedly initiate an armed standoff on the Hoover Dam, or lead the police on a 100-mile-an-hour car chase while ca...
The Bully’s Pulpit — with Fadi Quran
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The sound of bullies on social media can be deafening, but what about their victims? “They're just sitting there being pummeled and pummeled and pum...
The Dictator's Playbook Revisited — with Maria Ressa (Rerun)
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
[This episode originally aired on November 5, 2019] Maria Ressa is arguably one of the bravest journalists working in the Philippines today. As co-fou...
The Fake News of Your Own Mind — with Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When you’re gripped by anxiety, fear, grief or dread, how do you escape? It can happen in the span of a few breaths, according to meditation experts...
The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to Saving the Planet — with Christiana Figueres
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can we feel empowered to take on global threats? The battle begins in our heads, argues Christiana Figueres. She became the United Nation’s top ...
The Spin Doctors Are In — with Renée DiResta
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How does disinformation spread in the age of COVID-19? It takes an expert like Renée DiResta to trace conspiracy theories back to their source. She’...
When Attention Went on Sale — with Tim Wu
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An information system that relies on advertising was not born with the Internet. But social media platforms have taken it to an entirely new level, be...
Changing Our Climate of Denial — with Anthony Leiserowitz
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We agree more than we think we do, but tech platforms distort our perceptions by amplifying the loudest, angriest and most dismissive voices online. I...
Stranger than Fiction — with Claire Wardle
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can tech companies help flatten the curve? First and foremost, they must address the lethal misinformation and disinformation circulating on their...
Mr. Harris Goes to Washington
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What difference does a few hours of Congressional testimony make? Tristan takes us behind the scenes of his January 8th testimony to the Energy and Co...
Trust Falls — with Rachel Botsman
14 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are in the middle of a global trust crisis. Neighbors are strangers and local news sources are becoming scarcer; institutions that used to symboliz...
The Cure for Hate — with Tony McAleer
19 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“You can binge watch an ideology in a weekend,” says Tony McAleer. He should know. A former white supremacist, McAleer was introduced to neo-Nazi ...
Rock the Voter — with Brittany Kaiser
05 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Brittany Kaiser, a former Cambridge Analytica insider, witnessed a two day presentation at the company that shocked her and her co-workers. It laid ou...
The Dictator's Playbook — with Maria Ressa
05 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Maria Ressa is arguably one of the bravest journalists working in the Philippines today. As co-founder and CEO of the media site Rappler, she has with...
The Opposite of Addiction — with Johann Hari
22 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What causes addiction? Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream, travelled some 30,000 miles in search of an answer. He met with researchers and lawm...
Pardon the Interruptions — with Gloria Mark
14 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every 40 seconds, our attention breaks. It takes an act of extreme self-awareness to even notice. That’s why Gloria Mark, a professor in the Departm...
From Russia with Likes (Part 2) — with Renée DiResta
01 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of our interview with Renée DiResta, disinformation expert, Mozilla fellow, and co-author of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s...
From Russia with Likes (Part 1) — with Renée DiResta
24 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s online propaganda has evolved in unforeseeable and seemingly absurd ways; by laughing at or spreading a Kermit the Frog meme, you may be unw...
Down the Rabbit Hole by Design — with Guillaume Chaslot
10 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When we press play on a YouTube video, we set in motion an algorithm that taps all available data to find the next video that keeps us glued to the sc...
With Great Power Comes... No Responsibility? — with Yaёl Eisenstat
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Aza sits down with Yael Eisenstat, a former CIA officer and a former advisor at the White House. When Yael noticed that Americans were having a harder...
Should've Stayed in Vegas — with Natasha Dow Schüll
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In part two of our interview with cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll, author of Addiction by Design, we learn what gamblers are really after ...
What Happened in Vegas — with Natasha Dow Schüll
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Natasha Dow Schüll, author of Addiction by Design, has spent years studying how slot machines hold gamblers spellbound, in an endless loop of play. S...
Launching June 10: Your Undivided Attention
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Technology has shredded our attention. We can do better. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our colle...