Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat … these and other social media platforms allow us to keep up with old friends and make new ones, lets us expand our knowledge and stay informed about current events, and even give rise to important social movements. But social media are addictive, manipulative and the lynchpin of the surveillance economy. Their algorithms define what it means to be social. Social media also, to paraphrase our guest, valorizes the sensational over the sober. But if we want to live digital life to its fullest, what choice do we have? Well, our guest, Dr. Robert Gehl, is here to tell us that we do have choices, in the form of alternative social media. 

Dr. Robert Gehl is the F Jay Taylor Endowed Research Chair of Communication at Louisiana Tech University. He is also an alumnus of the Fulbright Canada Research Chair program and is the winner of the 2015 Association of Internet Researchers Nancy Baym Award. As an author, he has several books published, including Weaving the Dark Web (2018, MIT Press), Reverse Engineering Social Media (2014, Temple University Press), and Socialbots and Their Friends (2016, Routledge).

https://www.robertwgehl.org/
https://scholar.social/@robertwgehl 

------
Live Well and Flourish website: https://www.livewellandflourish.com/

The theme music for Live Well and Flourish was written by Hazel Crossler, [email protected].

Production assistant - Paul Robert