Note to Self
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.
WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts, including Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, Snap Judgment, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, Nancy and many others.
© WNYC Studios
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 20 minutes
- Episodes
- 299
- Years Active
- 2013 - 2019
Father's Day Bonus: Dad As the Lead Parent
This Father's Day, one dad on his role as lead parent, and what it means for his career, psyche, and marriage. With Andrew Moravcsik, an accomplished author, academic, and husband to Anne-Marie Slaug…
What Sen. Wyden Does When He’s Not Questioning Comey or Sessions
Besides investigating Russian election interference, Sen. Wyden is tackling government hacking, email surveillance, border device searches, and fighting for your rights online. How did a basketball-p…
Preview: Sen. Ron Wyden of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Today, Sen. Wyden hears testimony from former FBI Director James Comey. Next week, he’ll be here on Note to Self. Here’s a sneak peek at our chat about cybersecurity and your digital rights.
Meet the Humans Who Protect Your Eyes
Rochelle LaPlante keeps horrifying images off the internet, screening photos for four cents a click. Content moderators do an important job. So why don’t employers like Facebook hold them up as heroe…
What We Learned from Grandpa’s FBI File
Our producer discovered an FBI file on her grandfather. Back then, the big threat was communists. Today, it's terrorists, Occupy and BLM. Maybe even you. And the surveillance methods are a lot less a…
Ed Snowden Says a 'Very Very Dark Future' Is Not Inevitable
With all the news of leaks, national security, and hacking, who better to talk to than Ed Snowden? So yes, Manoush and Ed tackle the NSA, privacy, and ransomware. But also identity, the self, and the…
Wait, What IS Reality? We Investigate.
Who among us hasn’t wondered, maybe in a stoned haze, if the colors you see aren’t even the same colors that I see? How do we know we’re even in the same reality, man? That’s what the world has been…
Taking the Lead Episode 1: The Pain Point
This Mother's Day, a surprise. To celebrate working moms, we're re-releasing all four episodes of our award-winning series, Taking the Lead. The story of two Brooklyn women and their tech idea to hel…
Taking the Lead Episode 2: The Paradox
Episode two of Mother's Day series is The Paradox. Rachael and Leslie test a prototype of their app on one very eager participant: Manoush. And they run into an ironic challenge. Turns out, it's toug…
Taking the Lead Episode 3: The Pressure
Faced with financial barriers, Rachael and Leslie join a startup accelerator. But while honing their pitch, different goals emerge. Rachael is focused on social change, while Leslie wants to create a…
Taking the Lead Episode 4: The Partnership
The last episode in our Mother's Day special. Rachael Ellison and Leslie Ali Walker face difficult choices: Should they drop the feminist mission behind the company when they make their pitch to inve…
Why Are So Many Bots Following Manoush?
Bot armies are taking aim at our democracies, spreading garbage on Twitter from last November to Brexit to this weekend’s French election. But what do they want with Manoush?
Support Note to Self by …
Parents Just Don’t Understand, Tech Edition
Uh, mom, the eggplant emoji is not about food. The crying-laughing emoji is not appropriate for funerals. And dad, just texting 'K' is super passive-aggressive. This week, a real live therapist tackl…
AI Learns from Us. So It Learns Bias.
We count on robots to do more and more stuff. Drive cars, water crops, diagnose disease. What happens when the robots are racist? This week, a look back at one terrible AI mistake.
Support Note to S…
Revealing Selfies. Not Like That.
Your selfies are sharing way more than your smiling face. They’re full of data. Which is being used by stores. And banks. And police. And, well, everyone.
This week, you sent us your photos. We gave…
Spring Cleaning for the Mind
Information overload has reached an all time high. Is there a way to stay-up-to-date without losing your mind? Yes. We call it “single-tasking.” Here’s a reminder of what multi-tasking does to your b…
Cucked: Defining Manhood the Alt-Right Way
How one revolting, racist, sexist word emerged from the dark corners of 4chan and Reddit. And why we should care.
With slang lexicographer Jonathon Green, writer Dana Schwartz of the Observer, and De…
Deep-Dark-Data-Driven Politics
The story goes: the Trump campaign hired consultants called Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge uses data to target voters' personalities and emotions. Trump wins. But it's not so simple.
Did the Trump c…
The Man Who Invented Facebook Ad Tracking Is Not Sorry
After building the social network’s ad system, Antonio García Martínez tried to set his career on fire with a tell-all. An inside view on Face-versaries, terrifying emails from Zuck, and the cult of …
Government Secrets Worth Leaking... or Keeping?
So, the C.I.A. has a back door to your phone. At least, according to the Vault 7 data dump from WikiLeaks. This week, when are these tactics really making our lives safer?
Support Note to Self by bec…