By now, it's almost commonplace to worry that the amount of time you spend on the Internet is actually rewiring your brain. But the first person to really put the issue on the cultural map was the writer Nicholas Carr -- in a book that's become a contemporary classic: "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
If there is one song more than any other that shimmers with political and emotional resonance, it’s “We Shall Overcome.”
We look back at the legacy of the sixties: Tom Hayden, one of the founders of Students for a Democratic Society and later a State Assemblyman and Senator in California, talks with Steve Paulson.
Imagine mixing and matching your senses. People with a neurological condition called synesthesia can see music or hear colors. A few decades ago, scientists thought it was a myth, but neuroscientist David Eagleman says artists and synesthesia go way back.
Tyler Gallagher is the 2005 All-American Soap Box Derby Super Stock World Champion. Jeff Iula is the Derby’s General Manager...
In all this talk about the future, we should probably remember that the past repeats itself. Here's lauded Latin American author, Eduardo Galeano reading from his “Children of the Days.”
You can also listen to our extended conversation with him.
There's an entire sector of the economy run by people who are working diligently to get inside your head and harvest your attention? Does that creep you out? They're called the Attention Merchants. And their business model consists of attracting your attention and then reselling it for profit. They're ad-based TV channels, clickbait producers and the big social media producers. Law professor Tim Wu is the author of "The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads."
Shakespeare expert Stephen Greenblatt says Shakespeare believed all rulers suffered from insomnia.
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