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Radiolab

The Trust Engineers

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.644.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2015

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When we talk online, things can go south fast. But they don’t have to. Today, we meet a group of social engineers who are convinced that tiny changes in wording can make the online world a kinder, gentler place. So long as we agree to be their lab rats. Ok, yeah, we’re talking about Facebook. Because Facebook, or something like it, is more and more the way we share and like, and gossip and gripe. And because it's so big, Facebook has a created a laboratory of human behavior the likes of which we’ve never seen. We peek into the work of Arturo Bejar and a team of researchers who are tweaking our online experience, bit by bit, to try to make the world a better place. And along the way we can’t help but wonder whether that’s possible, or even a good idea.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Wait, you're listening.

0:02.1

Okay.

0:03.4

All right.

0:04.7

Okay.

0:06.0

All right.

0:07.5

You're listening to Radio Lab.

0:10.4

Radio Lab.

0:10.9

From W. N. Y.

0:12.9

C.

0:13.8

See?

0:14.1

Yep.

0:15.6

And NPR.

0:18.2

All right. Hey, I'm Chad Appum Rod.

0:20.1

I'm Robert Prelwich.

0:21.2

This is Radio Lab, the podcast.

0:22.9

So here's a story we've been following for a while.

0:25.3

Yes.

0:26.3

Comes from a friend of mine, Andrew Zolley, who is a great thinker and writer.

0:30.3

He wrote a book called Resilience, Why Things Bounce Back.

0:33.0

And he's a guy who thinks a lot about technology.

0:35.7

I have been interested in a long time, for a long time, in the relationship between technology and emotion.

0:45.2

And because, well, I've thrown more than one cell phone to the ground.

...

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