Safer than the real world, where we are judged and our actions have consequences, virtual social spaces were assumed to encourage experimentation, role-playing, and unlikely relationships. Luckily for those depending on our alienation for profits, digital media doesn’t really connect people that well, even when it’s designed to do so. We cannot truly relate to […]   read more »

Living in a digitally enforced attention economy means being subjected to a constant assault of automated manipulation. Persuasive technology, as it’s now called, is a design philosophy taught and developed at some of America’s leading universities and then implemented on platforms from e-commerce sites and social networks to smartphones and fitness wristbands. The goal is […]   read more »

The problem with media revolutions is that we too easily lose sight of what it is that’s truly revolutionary. By focusing on the shiny new toys and ignoring the human empowerment potentiated by these new media — the political and social capabilities they are retrieving — we end up surrendering them to the powers that […]   read more »

Playing for Team Human today, activist and a Founder of the Yellow Vest Movement, Priscillia Ludosky Ludosky will be showing us how a movement uniting the agendas of the people transcends the sensibilities of both the left and the right. You can support the Team Human podcast on Patreon and subscribe to the Team Human podcast on […]   read more »

Playing for Team Human today, Associate Director at the Polarization Extremism and Radical Innovation Lab at American University, Brian Hughes. Hughes shares with us the underlying drive fueling so much of today’s more violent extremism along with how we can mitigate some of its impact. You can support the Team Human podcast on Patreon and subscribe to […]   read more »

Everyone wants to know when we’re going to get the economy started up again, and just how many lives we’re willing to surrender before we do. We’ve all been made to understand the dilemma: The sooner we “open up” American and get back to our jobs, the more likely we spread Covid-19, further overwhelming hospitals […]   read more »

We were naive to think that digital technology would be intrinsically and inevitably more empowering than any medium that came before it. Yes, digital networks are more directionless and decentralized than their broadcast predecessors. They allow messages to flow from the bottom up, or the outside in. But, like all media, if they’re not consciously […]   read more »

Playing for Team Human today, Founders of the Stop Shopping Choir, Reverend Billy and Savitri D. They show us how we can retrieve the spirit of play and performance in our shared effort to keep this planet thriving. You can support the Team Human podcast on Patreon and subscribe to the Team Human podcast on […]   read more »

Those of us who witnessed the dawn of the interactive era originally believed that digital technology was going to bring back the human powers and priorities that industrialization had vanquished. The earliest interactive tools, such as the television remote control, changed our relationship to programming. Where breaking the captive spell of television used to require […]   read more »

Have you heard the good news? Donald Trump is suggesting our freeze on businesses as a measure to curb coronavirus may end as soon as Monday. Yes, allowing people to go back to work could lead to more widespread infection, but the deaths of a few hundred thousand — if not a few million — […]   read more »