<p>Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.</p><p>In this final episode, he considers where our media consumption might be headed. Many are concerned about smartphone addiction and a disintegration of public discourse, but others see a brighter future and our current times as a turning point to a world where the capacities of technology are used to benefit of society.</p><p>Matthew speaks to a former tech engineer who has become a philosopher and activist on attention, a historian who believes that our current era has many precedents, a psychologist who is wary of headlines about collapsed attention spans and a behavioural economist who can see a way that our society will adapt to the digital world.</p><p>Contributors:</p><p>James Williams, author of Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy Matthew Sweet, Historian and Broadcaster Professor Pete Etchells, Psychologist, Bath Spa University and author of Unlocked: The Science of Screen Time and How to Spend it Better Michael Muthukrishna, Associate Professor of Economic Psychology and author of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of who we are, how we got here and where we are going.</p><p>Presenter: Matthew Syed Producer: Sam Peach</p>

Sideways

BBC Radio 4

Appetite for Distraction: 5. The Future of Attention

DEC 3, 202415 MIN
Sideways

Appetite for Distraction: 5. The Future of Attention

DEC 3, 202415 MIN

Description

<p>Matthew Syed asks what it means to be distracted in a media world vying for our attention.</p><p>In this final episode, he considers where our media consumption might be headed. Many are concerned about smartphone addiction and a disintegration of public discourse, but others see a brighter future and our current times as a turning point to a world where the capacities of technology are used to benefit of society.</p><p>Matthew speaks to a former tech engineer who has become a philosopher and activist on attention, a historian who believes that our current era has many precedents, a psychologist who is wary of headlines about collapsed attention spans and a behavioural economist who can see a way that our society will adapt to the digital world.</p><p>Contributors:</p><p>James Williams, author of Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy Matthew Sweet, Historian and Broadcaster Professor Pete Etchells, Psychologist, Bath Spa University and author of Unlocked: The Science of Screen Time and How to Spend it Better Michael Muthukrishna, Associate Professor of Economic Psychology and author of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of who we are, how we got here and where we are going.</p><p>Presenter: Matthew Syed Producer: Sam Peach</p>