“How do I upgrade my brain?” In an ever more inhuman world, ever more humans seek answers to that question. But the right answer depends on what you mean by the question. If by “upgrading” you mean upgrading the nervous system according to its own needs and functions (my expertise), your...
Since people invented writing, communications technology has become steadily more high-bandwidth, pervasive and persuasive, taking a commensurate toll on human attention and cognition. In that bandwidth war between machines and humans, the machines’ latest weapon is a class of statistical...
By some weird fluke, I may be the most famous male pole dancer in the world this month. Not by any means the best, strongest or most graceful. Maybe the oldest and certainly the most unlikely. Being the opposite of a typical pole enthusiast gives me the perfect stage, in brief, to sing the...
FO Talks, brought to you by Fair Observer, hosts neuroscientist William Softky and educator Dr. Criscillia Benford to discuss the impact of educational technology on children's brains.
Fair Observer’s Atul Singh told me of his own friend, Pankaj, a father of three daughters. Pankaj was concerned that his daughters have been subjected to around three to seven hours a day of online classes, and he felt it was deeply wrong. I was invited by Fair Observer to write an article...
Everyone in business knows that as a general principle, the fastest-spreading, most revenue-positive ventures and messages wind up having the most influence. That's true not just for individual people, but for businesses, business models, technologies, communications protocols, you name it. Fast...
In a previous article on Fair Observer, I describe an unusual new way of communicating the most important parts of “scientific truth” through potentially noisy, biased news media. The key innovation is to consider them together, all at once, as a kind of jigsaw-puzzle about scientific truth,...
Let’s call my type “sympathetic breathers” because we often interrupt our breathing using the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight/freeze). We tend to hold our breath when we concentrate. Coaches and choreographers have to remind us to breathe and to inflate our entire belly, back and...
The good news about COVID-19 is that being forced into physical social separation and remote interaction is teaching people how precious real life is, and which remote technologies preserve reality best. Of those, videoconferencing has the most potential to do good, or harm, because it merges our...
The global tsunami of mental misery is ever-more-closely tied to rising human interaction with digital technology. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff explains why in his recently-published manifesto, “Team Human.” In short, our natural collaborative instincts have been undermined and toxified...
