Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi

By TED

Personal Journals Society & Culture

What's Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi about?

We all want to know if we’re normal—do I have enough friends? Should it take me this long to get over my ex? Should I move or stay where I am? Endlessly curious data journalist Mona Chalabi NEEDS to know, and she’s ready to dive into the numbers to get some answers. But studies and spreadsheets don’t tell the whole story, so she’s consulting experts, strangers, and even her mum to fill in the gaps. The answers might surprise you, and make you ask: does normal even exist?

Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi is produced in partnership with Transmitter Media.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Episode 1: The Internet’s F...

07.26.2023

The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a new show from the TED Audio Collective, hosted by Dylan Marron. It’s 1999, and sixteen years after its original release, a new Star Wars is finally coming. Fans have been camping out ...

Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi episodes:

07.26.2023 Episode 1: The Internet’s First Main Character? \| The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a new show from the TED Audio Collective, hosted by Dylan Marron. It’s 1999, and sixteen years after its original release, a new Star Wars is finally coming. Fans have been camping out ...
04.05.2023 Fixable: Kelli - "How do I deal with a communication breakdown?" This is an episode of Fixable, a new business call-in podcast from the TED Audio Collective hosted by Harvard Business professor Frances Frei and CEO and best-selling author Anne Morriss. Kelli is a nurse at a leading teaching hospital where ...
02.15.2023 Introducing Good Sport This week on Am I Normal? we’re excited to introduce TED’s newest podcast, Good Sport, hosted by veteran sports producer Jody Avirgan. What can sports teach us about life – and each other? Good Sport brings you invigorating stories from ...
01.04.2023 How to answer your biggest questions—with data \| How to Be a Better Human Whenever we have a question – about ourselves or the world around us – it can be helpful to visualize our answer in order to really understand it. But how do you conceptualize something as big as inequality, as complex ...
12.08.2022 Come As You Are with Dr. Emily Nagoski: How to Improve Your Orgasms Today, we're sharing a preview of a new podcast we think you'll enjoy. On Come As You Are, educator and bestselling author Dr. Emily Nagoski answers questions about sex with the latest science. You’ll get a modern guide to sexual ...
08.22.2022 How to predict the future \| The TED Interview Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn’t literally predicting the 2020 pandemic—but she ...
07.25.2022 The secret Somali mixtapes \| Far Flung It’s 1988, and Somalians are fleeing the city of Hargeisa. People are trying to get out, trying to save their families and sometimes their things. But in the city’s radio station, staff are packing cassettes and reel to reel recordings ...
05.03.2022 Breaking Up with Perfectionism \| WorkLife with Adam Grant Perfectionism is on the rise–and not just in job interviews when people claim it’s their greatest weakness. But the desire to be flawless is not always productive—or healthy. As a recovering perfectionist, organizational psychologist Adam Grant dives into how he ...
03.17.2022 What question is on YOUR mind? The first season of Am I Normal? centered around the questions of data journalist Mona Chalabi. In Season 2, launching in September this year, we want to answer the questions on YOUR mind. If you’ve ever wondered if something’s normal–whether ...
11.29.2021 Is it really that bad to marry my cousin? Charles Darwin. Edgar Allen Poe. Albert Einstein. What do all of these men have in common? Yes, they’ve made major contributions to science and literature. Buuuut they also all married their first cousins. Mona looks at the genetic consequences of ...
11.22.2021 Should you break the law? The obvious answer: no. Though you haven’t exactly committed to a life of crime if you jaywalk on an empty street. But if we bend the law on jaywalking, why not drunk driving? Well, there was a time when people ...
11.15.2021 Which box do I check? We’re constantly checking boxes on forms, whether it’s for eye color or sexual orientation. Those categories can be empowering or, they can make you feel invisible, like when Mona painted a portrait of 100 New Yorkers based on the New ...
11.08.2021 The Spermageddon is coming "You should start thinking about kids at your age! Your biological clock is ticking!” When we talk about fertility, there's one section of the population that's consistently subjected to fear mongering: the people with the ovaries. But is that worry ...
11.01.2021 Should I move home? Did you consider moving over the last two years? If you did, you’re not alone. People all over the world for so many different reasons considered moving: to be closer to family, to live somewhere more affordable, to kick back ...
10.25.2021 Is my dentist scamming me? When a dentist tells us something is wrong with our teeth, we tend to follow their advice. But when Mona visits two different dentists, they give her two wildly different diagnoses (with wildly different price tags). So how do we ...
10.18.2021 How many friends do I need? Time with friends just isn’t the same with a screen in between you. That’s a struggle many have faced recently, with half of Americans saying they’ve lost touch with at least one friend during the pandemic. It can be sad, ...
10.18.2021 When will I get over my breakup? Search “How long does it take to get over a break up?” and you’ll find answers ranging from three weeks to three-and-a-half years. Despite heartbreak being one of the most universal human experiences, we know very little about what—and how ...
10.06.2021 Coming soon: Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi Launching October 18 from the TED Audio Collective. We all want to know if we’re normal—do I have enough friends? Should it take me this long to get over my ex? Should I move or stay where I am? Endlessly ...