Social media

Alan Jacobs discusses some principles he’s compiled to help us think well (and charitably) in our cultural context, and he warns us to be attentive to the ways technology displaces previously fixed communities. (53 minutes)

FROM VOL. 94 Mark Bauerlein talks about the ways of learning and living practiced by contemporary youth, how they impact the acquisition and use of knowledge and form intellectual habits, and what this means for the future of our society. (16 minutes)

FROM VOL. 152 Jeffrey Bilbro advocates a Christian posture toward our contemporary digital media ecosystem that addresses its disorienting and disintegrating effects. (23 minutes)

D. C. Schindler draws on Plato to argue that in its very form, social media evidences a general contempt for logos — reason and language — which defines man. (26 minutes)

In this lecture, Felicia Wu Song explains how social media industrializes and monetizes our relationships, forming us in modes of relationships and identity that are detrimental to ourselves and to society. (41 minutes)

Neil Gabler and C. John Sommerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. (36 minutes)

Felicia Wu Song on why our technologies are not neutral tools

FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy

Essayist L. M. Sacasas discusses some of the ideas of Ivan Illich, whose work has influenced Sacasas’s own understanding of the anti-human dynamics of technological society. (21 minutes)

D. C. Schindler argues that much modern speech effectively expresses contempt for that which language (and reason) have been given to us: Truth. (33 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Jacob Silverman, Carson Holloway, Joseph Atkinson, Greg Peters, Antonio López, and Julian Johnson

Christine Rosen examines how social networking is changing the shape of relationships for millions of Americans, and affecting our understanding and experience of friendship. (50 minutes)

Christine Rosen on how social media encourages the unsociable traits of narcissism and exhibitionism.

FEATURED GUESTS: Ron Hansen, Bernard Lewis, Alan Jacobs, Adrienne Chaplin, Todd Gitlin, and Quentin Schultze