Note To Self

You judge the person playing Candy Crush. Even when it’s you. But that mental fist pump from leveling up has real value. How to stop judging and use games for a strategic reset. With game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, author of SuperBetter and Reality is Broken.

The Replika app chats with you, learns from you, and reflects you back. It starts to become you. And your AI self gets pretty real. Journalist Mike Murphy used the app to create his mini-me, and wrote about it for Quartz. After months of talking to himself, he had a breakthrough. And some questions about how we define humanness. You can find Mike’s story here.

And other fibs we tell our friends, family and lovers. Psychotherapist Esther Perel is back to call us on our bullsh*t. This is the second of our two-parter on how our phones create such intimacy and such distance. Esther’s new book is The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Listen to part one here.

Remember being dumped? Now, technology lets us delay, deflect, and disappear. Renowned pyschotherapist Esther Perel is here to help us fall in love better. Esther is the bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and the host of the podcast Where Should We Begin? Her new book is The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity.

Silicon Valley is still a man's world. And Ellen Ullman, who started programming in 1978, thinks it's high time for the rest of us to infiltrate. Ellen's new book, Life in Code, is full of great and awful stories. Her love of the work. The joys of hunting down a bug. But also, the client who would rub her back while she tried to fix his system. The party full of young men drinking beer, where she turned down a job offer from Larry Page. Ellen has watched tech-bro culture take over everything. Now, she says, we have to grab our angry dignity and fight back. 

José Cruz is a college student, research scientist, and phone power-user. He spent 6 hours in one day on his screen. So he wanted to cut back, make more time for research, reading, and mental drift. And he recorded himself doing it. It was not easy. There are some painful moments - but man, is there a payoff.  Plus, seventh grade teacher-turned-neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang on the link between single-tasking and innovation.  The second of our two episodes celebrating the launch of Manoush's new book, Bored and Brilliant. 

We deleted, we unplugged, we took walks. We made choices. We made time. Two years later, we catch up with some of the original Bored and Brilliant participants - some of the 20,000 people who joined our 2015 experiment. Today, that experiment is a book, designed to help us separate from our devices just a bit, and turn them from taskmaster to tool. To make space for boredom, and let the brilliance in. Plus a new conversation with tech-star and NTS friend Tristan Harris, a designer once tasked with sucking your eyeballs to the screen. Now, he’s fighting the good fight to reclaim your brain.

To encourage you to #GetBored and find brilliance, we made a weird earworm. It's an interview about the history of boredom... sound-designed to help you space out. A brain nap. With historian Peter Toohey, and some very soothing, meditative music.

A surprise bonus, because Manoush's TED talk is online now (!) and she has some behind-the-scenes memories to share from the main stage. To celebrate - and vent (in a good way). 

This week, five episodes for five ways we can do better by the planet. First: warm up, strip down. Rethink the air conditioner. With David Biello, science curator for TED. 

Giant whale turds. A permanent shade over the sun. One is flashier, but that's the danger of it. This is poopier oceans vs. the climate quick fix. The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

We’ve made our plants bigger, juicier, and sturdier. Now can we make them better at sucking CO2? And should we? The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

First, stick a giant vacuum cleaner onto a smokestack. Inhale the exhaust. Then what? The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

We were going to have to talk about it eventually. No, not Elon Musk (although yes, he does come up). Mars. Planet B. The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

It’s 2017, and Manoush still has a Yahoo account. Is her exit strategy an encrypted file in Switzerland? This week, the tech loyalties we keep past their expiration date, and how to move on - technically and emotionally.

We visit the Dark Web, where you can get heroin, fentanyl and oxycontin shipped right to your door. This week, we stress out our IT department with our searches and talk to author Nick Bilton about the Silk Road, online drug markets, and the opioid crisis in America. Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

A third of kids are online before they’re even born, thanks to sonogram images posted to Facebook. Is there a downside to all the kid photos we share? This week, we revisit a conversation with Hillary Frank, host of the Longest Shortest Time. And we want to hear what you think - did your parents post photos of you? Do you post photos of your kids? Visit notetoselfradio.org/kidphotos to take our survey. Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.

Yeah, it’s been a while for us too. So let’s reset. It’s the Bored and Brilliant bootcamp: three quick challenges to make space for brilliance in our accelerating world. Maybe you’ve heard this episode before, but even if you have, a boredom refresher can’t hurt. Take some time to daydream, and see what ideas bubble up as your mind wanders. Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.

Address books, maps, keys. Your Walkman, your datebook. All wiped out by your phone. Along with eye contact and boredom. This week, as the iPhone turns 10, we assess our most enduring love affair: the relationship between us and our devices. With tech journalist David Pogue and Adam Greenfield, author of Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life. Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.    

Netflix’s Black Mirror is a tweaked reflection of technology’s worst consequences - what show creator Charlie Brooker calls a “sarcastic version of the present.’ This week, Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones join us for a cheerfully dystopian chat about where their ideas come from, why they haven’t quit TV to launch a startup, and Twitter as the world’s top video game. Support Note to Self by becoming a member today at NotetoSelfRadio.org/donate.