Peter Pomerantsev, a contributor at The Atlantic and author of This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, is an expert on the ways information can be manipulated. For this special episode, Megan talks with Peter about the role of propaganda in America and how to watch out for it.  Looking for more great audio from The Atlantic? Check out Autocracy in America, hosted by Peter Pomerantsev and staff writer Anne Applebaum. Subscribe wherever you listen. Learn more about your...

With digital spaces regularly evolving and updating, and the infinite scroll beckoning to us at all times, this episode questions if we have, as a culture, fully embraced the end of endings. Hanna Reichel, an associate professor of reformed theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, helps illuminate how the emergence of godlike AI and the rise of creator culture compare with the reformations and transformations through which people lived (and died) in the past. Write to us at...

Games can serve as an escape from reality—but they can also shape our understanding of trust, collaboration, and what might be possible IRL. Megan Garber talks with C. Thi Nguyen, an associate philosophy professor at the University of Utah, to better understand how games can help us safely explore our current reality and shape new realities, too. Write to us at [email protected].  Music by Forever Sunset (“Spring Dance”), baegel (“Cyber Wham”), Etienne Roussel (“Twilight”), Dip...

With smartphones in our pockets and doorbell cameras cheaply available, our relationship with video as a form of proof is evolving. We often say “pics or it didn’t happen!”—but meanwhile, there’s been a rise in problematic imaging including deepfakes and surveillance systems, which often reinforce embedded gender and racial biases. So what is really being revealed with increased documentation of our lives? And what’s lost when privacy is diminished?  In this episode of How to Know What’s...

This episode explores the web’s effects on our brains and how narrative, repetition, and even a focus on replaying memories can muddy our ability to separate fact from fiction.  How do we come to believe the things we do? Why do conspiracy theories flourish? And how can we train our brains to recognize misinformation online?  Lisa Fazio, an associate psychology professor at Vanderbilt University, explains how people process information and disinformation, and how to debunk and pre-bunk in...

While the vibrance, innovation, and cacophony of online life can feel completely unlike anything humanity has ever created before, its newness isn’t wholly unprecedented. Humans reckoned with many similar challenges to life as they knew it while navigating a different kind of social web: the city.   In this episode, Danah Boyd, a partner researcher at Microsoft Research and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, explains how the sociological work conducted during a time of...

Social media has made it easier to build more parasocial relationships with celebrities and influencers. What impact are those connections having on our relationships IRL? And how do they shift our understanding and expectations of intimacy and trust?  Florida State University assistant professor Arienne Ferchaud defines parasocial relationships and discusses how new technologies are changing the role of entertainment in our lives. Music by Forever Sunset (“Spring Dance”), baegel (“Cyber...

What is “real life,” now that the internet and AI are integrated into so much that we do? In the new season of The Atlantic’s popular How To series, co-hosts Megan Garber and Andrea Valdez explore deepfakes, illusions, and misinformation, and how to make sense of where things are really happening. How to Know What’s Real examines how technology has altered our sense of connectedness and how to determine what is authentic and true. Write to us at [email protected]. Learn more...

It can be tough to face our own mortality. Keeping diaries, posting to social media, and taking photos are all tools that can help to minimize the discomfort that comes with realizing we have limited time on Earth. But how exactly does documenting our lives impact how we live and remember them?  In this episode, diarist and author Sarah Manguso reflects on the benefits and limitations of keeping track of time, and Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and researcher at the UC Davis...

Time can feel like a subjective experience—different at different points in our lives. It’s also a real, measurable thing. The universe may be too big to fully comprehend, but what we do know could help inform the ways we approach our understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and our time. Theoretical physicist and black-hole expert Janna Levin explains how the science of time can inspire new thinking and fresh perspectives on a much larger scale. Music by Rob Smierciak (“Slow Money, Money...

Between making time for work, family, friends, exercise, chores, shopping—the list goes on and on—it can feel like a huge accomplishment to just take a few minutes to read a book or watch TV before bed. All that busyness can lead to poor sleep quality when we finally do get to put our heads down.  How does our relationship with rest impact our ability to gain real benefits from it? And how can we use our free time to rest in a culture that often moralizes rest as laziness? Alex Soojung-Kim...

Before laptops allowed us to take the office home and smartphones could light up with notifications at any hour, work time and “life” time had clearer boundaries. Today, work is not done exclusively in the workplace, and that makes it harder to leave work at work.  Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost examine the habits that shrink our available time, and Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Latin American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, offers his reflections on American...

Many of us complain about being too busy—and about not having enough time to do the things we really want to do. But has busyness become an excuse for our inability to focus on what matters?  According to Neeru Paharia, a marketing professor at Arizona State University, time is a sort of luxury good—the more of it you have, the more valuable you are. But her research also revealed that, for many Americans, having less time and being busy can be a status symbol for others to notice. And when...

Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost explore our relationship with time and how to reclaim it. Why is it so important to be productive? Why can it feel like there’s never enough time in a day? Why are so many of us conditioned to believe that being more productive makes us better people? Author Oliver Burkman offers some insights. This episode was co-hosted by Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost. Becca Rashid also produces the show. Editing by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena...

Why can it feel like there’s never enough time in a day, and why are so many of us conditioned to believe that being more productive makes us better people? On How to Keep Time, co-hosts Becca Rashid and contributing writer Ian Bogost talk with social scientists, authors, philosophers, and theoretical physicists to learn more about time and how to reclaim it. How to Keep Time launches December 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot of people are plagued by the feeling that society used to be better, that neighbors were more helpful, that strangers once talked to you. Some people channel that belief into political action, as in the Make America Great Again movement. A new study explains why the sense that people and the culture have gotten worse is a psychological illusion. This special episode features Hanna Rosin, the host of Radio Atlantic. Subscribe and find new episodes of Radio Atlantic every Thursday. If you...

The values of individualism that encourage us to go it alone are in constant tension with the desire for community that many people crave. But when attempting to do things on our own, we may miss out on the joys of coming together. This season’s finale conversation features writer Mia Birdsong, who highlights the cultural and philosophical roots of Americans’ struggle to build community. In a culture pushing us to put our own oxygen mask on first, Mia argues for the quiet radicalness of...

Are commitment issues impacting our ability to connect with the people who live around us? Relationship building may involve a commitment to the belief that neighbors are worthy of getting to know. In this episode of How to Talk to People, author Pete Davis makes the case for building relationships with your neighbors and wider community and offers some practical advice for how to take the first steps.  This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and is hosted by Julie Beck. Editing by...

What motivated two families to engage in the organized chaos of shared living and how did they learn to talk through, and shape, new expectations for their family life at home? In this episode of How to Talk to People, we hear from Deborah Tepley and Luke Jackson, who remember when they first asked their best friends to buy a house with them. The Flemings—soon to be expecting their first child—didn’t hesitate to say yes. Their real estate agent and extended families warned against the...

The terms of friendship are both voluntary and vague—yet people often find themselves disappointed by unmet expectations. In this episode of How to Talk to People, we explore how to have the difficult conversations that can make our friendships richer and how to set expectations in a relationship defined by choice. This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and is hosted by Julie Beck. Editing by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Rob Smierciak....

Coffee shops, churches, libraries, and concert venues are all shared spaces where mingling can take place. Yet the hustle and bustle of modern social life can pose challenges to relationship-building—even in spaces designed for exactly that.  In this episode of How to Talk to People, we analyze how American efficiency culture holds us back from connecting in public, whether social spaces create a culture of interaction, and what it takes to actively participate in a community.  Hosted by...

Making small talk can be hard—especially when you’re not sure whether you’re doing it well. But conversations are a central part of relationship-building.  In this first episode of How to Talk to People, we explore the psychological barriers to making good small talk and unravel the complexities of the mutual discomfort that comes with talking to people we don’t know well.  The social scientist Ty Tashiro and the hairstylists Erin Derosa and Mimi Craft help us understand what it means to...

On How to Talk to People we explore the barriers to relationship building and why—in a world of endless potential for connection—so many people still feel alone. From the struggle to prioritize non-romantic relationships, to just feeling uncertain of what to talk about with strangers, host Julie Beck and producer Rebecca Rashid unravel the complexities of putting yourself out there—in hopes of revealing the rewards of showing up.  Talk to How to Talk to People—by “talk,” we mean write to...

Holy Week: The story of a revolution undone. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, is often recounted as a conclusion to a powerful era of civil rights in America, but how did this hero’s murder come to be the stitching used to tie together a narrative of victory? The week that followed his killing was one of the most fiery, disruptive, and revolutionary, and is nearly forgotten. Over the course of eight episodes, Holy Week brings forward the stories of the...