Gemma Milne joined us on the Make Things Better podcast to discuss hype.  

Gemma's book Smoke & Mirrors; How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It helps to explain how hype in Science and Tech can have significant impacts on society and how critical thinking can help us understand complex topics better.  

In this episode we discuss a range of topics centred around how we can become more aware of hype:  

2:57 - What is Smoke & Mirrors about? 

5:48 - How much does hype maintain the status quo?

17:36 - How much has hype led to growth in cryptocurrencies? 

21:34 - Virtual Reality hype 

30:24 - How much does complexity impact headlines? 

35:30 - Critical thinking in the attention economy 

39:54 - Making trade-offs in quantity and quality of knowledge/understanding 

44:35 - A checklist for avoiding hype 

48:10 - Feeling empowered to think about Science and Tech  

You can also find the full transcription to this podcast episode here: https://medium.com/hive-it/chatting-w... 

This podcast is brought to you by Hive IT. We are a friendly digital agency based in Sheffield. Our aim is to make a positive difference in the world. We started the Make Things Better podcast to attempt to discuss with various people how, as humans, we can make the world a little bit better.  

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