Book of the Day

Author Jade Chang on the books she's reading to keep summer going

People we don't actually know, and these can be people who in reality lead very, very messy lives. They can be lost, very conflicted people, and we still let them tell us what to do.

Mixed Signals

Jessica Tarlov on Being Fox News' Democrat, Getting Yelled At on TV, & Pete Hegseth | Semafor Media

I think there's a huge chasm obviously between people who consume the five through clips and those who actually watch the full hour and see what the dynamic looks like in the back half of the show when we're talking about dating trends and AI robot dogs versus you know what Steven Miller is doing to innocent people who are just day laborers showing up at Home Depot.

Semafor

How A New Kind of Video Business Cashed In on America’s Divided Politics | Semafor Media

What I really wanted to figure out was this. How did a recent University of Chicago graduate create so many newsfocused accounts in such a short amount of time that continued to go viral? Who are the people watching these videos millions and millions of times? And what does it mean for our information economy, for the midterms, for the presidential elections that people were seemingly unknowingly consuming this content that was being created by people who were paid actors.

Fresh Air

Riz Ahmed takes on his inner critic

the gap between that public self and the messy vulnerability of our private selves is often huge, you know, and that's true whether you're talking about how your life is actually going versus the Instagram post you just got up, put up, or that you saw of someone else, or like how professional and put together you're seeming on a Zoom call when actually you're not wearing any pants, you know, just out of the frame.

TED Radio Hour

How the creator economy is making you talk like the internet

I started noticing how I would reroute my language around platform constraints. Can you give me an example of that? Like, what? Yeah, well, you can't say the word kill on TikTok. I mean, I guess you can, but it's suppressed. Your video's gonna be shown to fewer people, so people turn to alternatives like Unalive.

It's Been a Minute

The influencer era is dead. What's next?

Attention is just like a supply and demand business. At some point, there is going to be too much supply. And so, what we're seeing is a lot of these lifestyle influencers that, you know, 5, 10 years ago would have, you know, you know, with enough consistency, if they post something that looks aspirational and cool enough, people will find their audience. But now that kind of everyone has to be everything to everyone and everyone has to be reaching new For You pages all the time on every single platform, what worked 5 years ago is not working anymore.

TED Radio Hour

How the creator economy is making you talk like the internet

I started noticing how I would reroute my language around platform constraints. You can't say the word kill on TikTok. I mean, I guess you can, but it's suppressed. Your video is going to be shown to fewer people, so people turn to alternatives like Unalive.

Book of the Day

Journalist Jodi Kantor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks on how to find purpose

Any technology that is a substitute for in-real-life socialization is going to hurt your happiness. And so, in our efforts to solve every problem and distract ourselves from encroaching misery in our lives, enter the smartphone, which has made it possible for us to solve the problem of human boredom, which by the way eliminates the right hemisphere of the brain and helps us find meaning through mind wandering. We literally need to be bored.

TED Radio Hour

How the creator economy is making you talk like the internet

I started noticing my own speech being restricted a little bit. I started noticing how I would reroute my language around platform constraints.

The Prof G Pod

Debra Soh: "We're Having Less Sex Than Ever" — Here's Why

I think when we outsource our personal lives, and especially things like emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy, to these platforms that are not necessarily looking out for our best interests or treating us as individuals who have dreams and the desire to fall in love, um that can be potentially very unhelpful and frustrating to people.

Fresh Air

Best Of: Jia Tolentino on plastic surgery & AI / ‘Beef’ creator Lee Sun Jin

The face looked like the beauty filters that Snapchat and Instagram provided to kind of lift your cheeks and plump your lips and make your eyes bigger and make your chin a little more heart-shaped. And you could press a button or you could use Facetune to digitally alter your face to fit this kind of algorithmically approved beauty standard. Like this was a face that the algorithm liked.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble

the core idea is that no single company — or individual billionaire — can amass too much power and control over our social networks and the conversations that happen on them.

Daily Stoic

Fighting Modern Corruption With Ancient Stoic Wisdom

We're in the middle of what you would call a moral inversion, where some of the worst people are getting the most attention and getting the furthest ahead. It almost looks like it's a bad strategy to be honest, to try to work hard, to try to do things at the the right pace, right? Everyone's looking for shortcuts. Everyone's seeing scams and sketchiness as as a success strategy, one that you can get away with.

It's Been a Minute

The hidden money financing your favorite songs

It's getting harder and harder to trust online taste makers because they might be getting secretly paid to show for labels. This is not a conspiracy theory. It's real.

Mixed Signals

The Looming Public Health Crisis Everyone Is Ignoring, with Dr. Vivek Murthy | Mixed Signals

Social media for many people has become antisocial media. It began perhaps with the intent to build community but instead ended up replacing in-person connections with online connections leading people to focus less on the quality of their relationships and more the quantity of their connections.

It's Been a Minute

The naked truth of beauty

The internet democratized beauty, but now we all are kind of treating ourselves as these project managers of our faces and our bodies.

It's Been a Minute

The fame and (mis)fortune of family influencing

Those early mom blogs, the mothers were the main characters. And now with family influencing on Instagram and on YouTube, really the kids became the main character and they became the draw and the mothers kind of faded into the background.

It's Been a Minute

The Shelf Life of a Pop Star | It's Been a Minute

The very specific allegations in the lawsuit went so much against what people loved about her in such a big way. On top of that, like she's very been very public about saying like she's passed the body positivity movement and now to body neutrality. And so, you know, I think for a lot of people is like a little bit of a brand betrayal.

The Prof G Pod

OpenAI’s First Acquisition: How TBPN Built a $30M Media Business

If someone quotes your post with a thoughtful commentary that's filmed in 4K with cinema cameras and the hosts are wearing suits and they print it. They took the time to print out your post. It's just wow. These people went a lot further to say something. I'm at least going to see what they had to say about the thing that I fired off in the shower.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. When these lawsuits go forward and we get discovery from tech companies, they know that these are problems and then they're doing it anyway.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. Yeah, there's been these like exponential rises in anxiety, depression. Um, you know, young women and girls have fallen off a cliff almost with the rise of social media.

TED

Why a Social Media Ban Won’t Save Teens | Candice Odgers | TED

The answer is that adults were in distress and parents were dying. OK, let's go back to that elephant in the room. Social media and smartphones also increased during this period. But here's the weird thing. In our longitudinal studies, social media does not emerge as a major predictor of teen mental health.

Pivot

Kara Swisher on Buttigieg Family Swatting Attack: “This Was Terrifying” | Pivot

The internet doesn't have a speech problem. It has an accountability problem. And our fetishization for free speech and anonymity has resulted in a total lack of accountability.

TED

Why a Social Media Ban Won’t Save Teens | Candice Odgers | TED

People ask me all the time: what could have happened during this period other than social media coming online? The answer is that adults were in distress and parents were dying.

TED Radio Hour

Are we using screens as a scapegoat for teen mental health?

the stories that you and I are told repeatedly every day about teenagers today, that they are lost, that they are worse off than ever, that somehow smartphones and social media have destroyed them and their brains, it doesn't match the data. And it doesn't match what they tell us. There is a massive gap.

TED Radio Hour

Are we using screens as a scapegoat for teen mental health?

The stories that you and I are told repeatedly every day about teenagers today, that they are lost, that they are worse off than ever, that somehow smartphones and social media have destroyed them and their brains, it doesn't match the data. And it doesn't match what they tell us.

Pivot

Mark Zuckerberg Is Coming for Prediction Markets. Kara Swisher Calls Him Out | Pivot

Where social media takes people to the extremes, AI takes everyone to the middle and it's very moderated and so creativity has never been more important.

TED Radio Hour

Are we using screens as a scapegoat for teen mental health?

The story that we're repeatedly told as parents and policymakers and people that are invested, that social media is universally harmful, that it is damaging brains, that is leading to an epidemic of mental health problems, that simply isn't supported by the data.

Pivot

Everyone Wrote Off Hunter Biden. Then He Started Posting | Pivot

You can't just live on Twitter and social media alone. As Spencer Pratt just found out, there was a lot more heat around him than there were votes.

TED

How to Google Your Symptoms Without Freaking Out | John Whyte | TED

The feeds on Instagram are often driven by algorithms and what you search. So here I am, I've been a physician for 20-plus years, I know the data on statins, and I'm starting to think maybe I don't need a statin. And then I'm getting more doctors' feeds that are saying you don't need to be on a statin.

TED

Why You Should Be a Techno-Skeptic | Jonathan Haidt | TED

Which means that puberty is the worst possible time for a human being to be on social media. For our ultra-social species, that rewiring should be guided by huge amounts of social interaction in the real world, not by TikTok's algorithm.

Fresh Air

Riz Ahmed is chasing acceptance in 'Bait'

the gap between that public self and the messy vulnerability of our private selves is often huge. And that's true whether you're talking about how your life is actually going versus the Instagram post you just put up or that you saw of someone else, or how professional and put together you're seeming on a Zoom call when actually you're not wearing any pants, just out of the frame.

Mixed Signals

The Twitch Creators Explaining the News to Gen Z

The instant I saw that a friend of mine was streaming himself eating at Chili's. I knew it would be a cultural touchstone moment that I simply could not pass up on.

Book of the Day

In 'Bad Asians,' a friend group threatens its reputation with a viral video

I was trying to capture that initial innocence that we all had. The sense that you were almost in a private room with your friends rather than having it be this public forum that everyone across the world could attend.