How do you ethically steer the thoughts and actions of two billion people’s minds every day?
Tristan Harris has spent his career studying how today’s major technology platforms have increasingly become the social fabric by which we live and think, wielding dangerous power over our ability to make sense of the world. Named to the TIME 100 “Next Leaders Shaping the Future” and Rolling Stone Magazine’s “25 People Shaping the World,” Tristan is Co-Founder & President of the Center for Humane Technology, which is catalyzing a comprehensive shift toward humane technology that operates for the common good, strengthening our capacity to tackle our biggest global challenges. He is the Co-Host of “Your Undivided Attention,” consistently among the top ten technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts, which explores how social media’s race for attention is destabilizing society and the vital insights we need to envision solutions. Tristan was also the primary subject of the acclaimed Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” which unveiled the hidden machinations behind social media and has reached an estimated 100 million people worldwide, streaming in 190 countries in 30 languages. He has briefed heads of state, technology company CEOs, and members of the US Congress, in addition to mobilizing millions of people around the world through mainstream media campaigns.
From his childhood as a magician, to his coursework in Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab and later as a Design Ethicist at Google, Tristan has explored the influences that hijack human attitudes, behaviors and beliefs. Following his 2013 viral internal presentation at Google, “A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users’ Attention,” which sounded the alarm on the harms posed by the attention economy, Tristan began to surface these issues in public conversation via 60 Minutes and a TED Talk in 2017. The deep resonance of the ideas led to the Time Well Spent movement, which sparked product changes at Facebook, Apple, and Google, and laid the groundwork for the launch of the Center for Humane Technology as an independent nonprofit in 2018.
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Technology companies are locked in an arms race to seize our attention, and that race is tearing apart the social fabric.
In this podcast from the Center for Humane Technology, co-founders Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore how technology has manipulated human nature and warped our world.
In each episode, Tristan and Aza interview experts on human nature and the ways technology impacts society – ranging from how technology influences attention spans, drives addiction, spreads rumors and disinformation, topples democracies – and explore potential ways we might fix it.
Learn more with Your Undivided Attention.
