Is your phone watching you? Can texting make you smarter? Are your kids real? Note to Self explores these and other essential quandaries facing anyone trying to preserve their humanity in the digital age.
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Stories of life online, told live.
We teamed up with Generation Women, a monthly event where women from their 20s to their 80s share stories on a theme. For this episode, the theme is My Digital Revo…
Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian, takes the numb out of numbers. She joins Manoush to talk about stats versus stories, how data defines normal, and average testicle size. That one’s an inter…
We asked how you share personal photos. Here’s what we learned from your 1,200 (!) answers.
Psychologist Guy Winch joins Manoush to untangle our mixed posting emotions. Because our grams are complex.…
Real OKCupid message: “Hi, good evening, nice photos. You are not fat.” It’s rough on dating apps. Can romance survive?
Eric Klinenberg wrote Modern Romance with Aziz Ansari. This week, he joins Mano…
Let’s build a database of political Facebook ads. Just in case someone needs to check on them later. Like, say, if the Russians bought thousands of ads to sway an election. Manoush’s privacy girlfrie…
We all need someone to tell (or text) our stories to. Even if they’re paid to text back.
This week, Manoush meets an Invisible Girlfriend, earning pennies a message to create fake love. And an utterl…
Screen time is a daily battle. Between kids and parents, between ourselves and our better judgment. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. There is a better way.
Manoush gets the answers from Anya Kamenetz…
Is there a secret solution to information overload? Can random accounts ever truly be erased? How do I stay connected if I break up with social media? It’s Manoush’s brain, distilled into actionable …
People have a lot of excuses for not meditating. Eight, in fact. Dan Harris knows them all. And he can help.
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Let’s create some calm as this year ends. It all starts with one deep breath, led by Google employee 107. This week, we revisit Manoush’s lovely interview with Chade-Meng Tan, who retired at 44 to me…
The creators of the Netflix hit Black Mirror on predicting the future, Twitter as a massive role-playing game, and nostalgia for meh. As season four of the Emmy-award-winning show approaches, we revi…
The tradeoffs we don’t see when we shop on Amazon. Why the answer isn’t to cancel your Prime. And yes, I bring Alexa’s new camera into my bedroom.
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People say mean things to Dylan Marron online. He takes that as an invitation to call them up and make friends.
This week, the benefits of talking to our haters, and why it’s good for the country as …
An incomplete list of the objects listening to us: Siri. Alexa. Google Home. With so many recordings, the transcribed life isn’t far off. For better or for worse.
This week, one intrepid woman recor…
How a single American’s quest for his own digital marketing profile may show us all how our data travels the world. And may even end up in the hands of foreign governments.
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From March, the first chapter in our look at Cambridge Analytica. We asked the controversial digital marketing firm what services they provided for Trump. And experimented with our own psychometric p…
More spy terms explained, reasonable/sensible coping strategies for when democracy is under threat, and nyet more puns. This week: how to spot a botnet. How psychometrics sells sneakers - and worldvi…
Russian spy tactics have gotten an upgrade since the Cold War. This week how they work now: bad actors, active measures, advanced persistent threats. Cyberwar has its own vocabulary. So we got oursel…
If talking about democracy getting hacked feels like old news, it’s time to take a fresh look.
This week, we separate fear from facts with Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast. Goo…
There was a time humans were guided by stars, not satellite. Now you can beam into robots, or turn on GPS. But when we put ourselves on autopilot we may lose our minds.
This week, Manoush outsources …