Your Undivided Attention
Join us every other Thursday to understand how new technologies are shaping the way we live, work, and think.
Your Undivided Attention is produced by Senior Producer Julia Scott and Researcher/Producer is Joshua Lash. Sasha Fegan is our Executive Producer. We are a member of the TED Audio Collective.
- Update frequency
- every 12 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 143
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
How To Free Our Minds — with Cult Deprogramming Expert Dr. Steven Hassan
How would you know if you were in a cult?
If not a cult, then at least under undue influence?
The truth is: we're all under some form of undue influence. The question is: to what degree and to what ex…
Spotlight — A Bigger Picture on Elon & Twitter
If Elon Musk owns Twitter, what are the risks and what are the opportunities? In order for Twitter to support democracy — and Musk’s goal of becoming a multi-planetary civilization — we need a radica…
What Is Civil War in the Digital Age? — with Barbara F. Walter
Civil war might be the most likely escalation pathway towards disaster for our country. On the flip side, learning how to avoid civil conflict — and more ambitiously, repair our civic fabric — might …
Spotlight — What Is Humane Technology?
“The fundamental problem of humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.” — E. O. Wilson.
More than ever, we need the wisdom to match the power of our…
Digital Democracy is Within Reach with Audrey Tang (Rerun)
[This episode originally aired on July 23rd, 2020.] Imagine a world where every country has a digital minister and technologically-enabled legislative bodies. Votes are completely transparent and aud…
The Dark Side Of Decentralization — with Audrey Kurth Cronin
Is decentralization inherently a good thing?
These days, there's a lot of talk about decentralization. Decentralized social media platforms can allow us to own our own data. Decentralized cryptocurre…
The Invisible Influence of Language — with Lera Boroditsky
One of the oldest technologies we have is language. How do the words we use influence the way we think?
The media can talk about immigrants scurrying across the border, versus immigrants crossing the …
How Science Fiction Can Shape Our Reality — with Kim Stanley Robinson
The meta-crisis is so vast: climate change, exponential technology, addiction, polarization, and more. How do we grasp it, let alone take steps to address it?
One of the thinking tools we have at our…
Here’s Our Plan And We Don’t Know — with Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin and Stephanie Lepp
Renowned quantum physicist Richard Feynman once wrote, "It is our capacity to doubt that will determine the future of civilization."
In that spirit, this episode is a little different – because we're…
Is World War III Already Here? — with Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster
Would you say that the US is in war-time or peace-time? How do you know? The truth is, the nature of warfare has changed so fundamentally, that we're currently in a war we don't even recognize. It's … |
A Fresh Take on Tech in China — with Rui Ma and Duncan Clark
Who do you think the Chinese government considers its biggest rival? The United States, right? Actually, the Chinese government considers its biggest rival to be its own technology companies.
It's Ch…
Behind the Curtain on The Social Dilemma — with Jeff Orlowski-Yang and Larissa Rhodes
How do you make a film that impacts more than 100 million people in 190 countries in 30 languages?
This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're going behind the curtain on The Social Dilemma — the Net…
A Conversation with Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen
We are now in social media's Big Tobacco moment. And that’s largely thanks to the courage of one woman: Frances Haugen.
Frances is a specialist in algorithmic product management. She worked at Google,…
Spotlight — A Whirlwind Week of Whistleblowing
In seven years of working on the problems of runaway technology, we’ve never experienced a week like this! In this bonus episode of Your Undivided Attention, we recap this whirlwind of a week — from …
Making Meaning in Challenging Times — with Jamie Wheal
What helps you make meaning in challenging times? As you confront COVID, the climate crisis, and all of the challenges we discuss on this show, what helps you avoid nihilism or fundamentalism, and in…
Spotlight — The Facebook Files with Tristan Harris, Frank Luntz, and Daniel Schmachtenberger
On September 13th, the Wall Street Journal released The Facebook Files, an ongoing investigation of the extent to which Facebook's problems are meticulously known inside the company — all the way up …
The Power of Solutions Journalism — with Tina Rosenberg and Hélène Biandudi Hofer
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 (SJN) understands that simply reporting on social pr…
Do You Want to Become a Vampire? — with L.A. Paul
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 explored by Yale philosopher and cognitive scientis…
You Will Never Breathe the Same Again — with James Nestor
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 for up to 8 minutes at a time, and dive to depths o…
A Facebook Whistleblower — with Sophie Zhang
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 described the anguish and guilt she had experienced …