Note to Self

By WNYC Studios

What's Note to Self about?

Is your phone watching you? Can texting make you smarter? Are your kids real? Note to Self explores these and other essential quandaries facing anyone trying to preserve their humanity in the digital age.
WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts, including Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, Snap Judgment, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, Nancy and many others.
© WNYC Studios

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LAST EPISODE

Note to Self is Back and We...

04.23.2019

The tech show about being human returns with an all new season. Host Manoush Zomorodi kicks things off with the latest on the battle between kids and parents over their screens: do we know how kids are impacted by tech? ...

Note to Self episodes:

04.23.2019 Note to Self is Back and We Start with The Big One: Kids and Screens The tech show about being human returns with an all new season. Host Manoush Zomorodi kicks things off with the latest on the battle between kids and parents over their screens: do we know how kids are impacted by tech? ...
04.22.2019 Note to Self is Back! Note to Self helps you navigate the digital age by making sense of its most undervalued component: humans! With all new episodes coming every Tuesday, host Manoush Zomorodi investigates the very personal role technology plays in our lives and how ...
02.22.2019 Rice Bunny: The Me Too Movement Comes to China This week we’re discussing government censorship in China, #metoo and cryptocurrency. Endless Thread is hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and is made by WBUR.
06.25.2018 Dear (Data) Diary Long-distance friends Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec spent a year tracking the little things in life. Thanks yous, coffees, complaints, street sounds. And each week, they turned their small-scale data collections into whimsical hand-drawn postcards. On a minute level, they ...
06.20.2018 A Different Kind of Streaking With former Google designer Tristan Harris, who explains how far Silicon Valley will go to capture and control your eyeballs. And Snapchat artist CyreneQ, who makes her living drawing on her phone all day. For real. ------- For the next ...
06.07.2018 Your Metadata is Showing We asked you guys to send us photos. Then we gave them to Andreas Weigend, veteran of Xerox Parc, former chief scientist at Amazon, to see what he could deduce. A lot, it turns out. A little Google image search, ...
05.16.2018 Whose Bot Army Is Following Manoush? Generic usernames, no photos, no tweets. This week, we investigate the dozens of mysterious accounts following Manoush on Twitter. Plus, what makes a good bot – and a bad one. ------- For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best ...
05.02.2018 The Fourth Amendment Needs Your Attention This week, the Supreme Court cases that defined privacy for the digital age. Because the founding fathers didn’t write the Bill of Rights with the internet in mind. ------- For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best of” Note ...
04.18.2018 Is the Opioid Epidemic a Tech Problem? We visit the Dark Web, where you can get heroin, fentanyl and oxycontin shipped right to your door. This week, the link between online drug markets and America’s opioid crisis. ------- For the next several weeks you'll hear the “Best ...
04.04.2018 How To Have No Filter Today, listener stories and tips: we wrap up our No Filter series of conversations about how women live online. From YouTube megastar Lele Pons to iconic artist Barbara Kruger, we heard a joyous mix of vulnerable confessions, utter defiance, and ...
04.03.2018 No Filter: Jasmyn Lawson The woman behind some of your favorite gifs takes us to the future. See what being a woman on the web may look like. We couldn’t close out No Filter, our series on women owning it online, without profiling Jasmyn ...
03.30.2018 No Filter: Barbara Kruger The iconic artist talks to Manoush about our curated selfies, owning a font, and why we all need likes. Plus, The Cut’s editor in chief Stella Bugbee. If you missed the other episodes of No Filter earlier this week, go ...
03.29.2018 No Filter: Christiane Amanpour The CNN anchor talks to Manoush about sex, wearing a “uniform,” and staying profesh on air and online. Plus, Call Your Girlfriend co-host and Cut contributor Ann Friedman, who almost fell out of her ergonomic chair when she found out ...
03.28.2018 No Filter: Amy Sherald Her portrait of Michelle Obama went viral. Painter Amy Sherald dismisses the haters. “Some people want their poetry to rhyme.” Plus, Allison P. Davis, Senior Culture Writer at The Cut, on how picking Amy was like Michelle Obama choosing her ...
03.27.2018 No Filter: Trace Lysette The Transparent star talks to Manoush about the political nude selfie, her #metoo moment, and constructing her self online and IRL. Plus, how her life as a young trans woman prepared her to confront Jeffrey Tambor and live her truth. ...
03.26.2018 No Filter: Lele Pons Every day this week, a new episode of our series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Five conversations with badass women. Some old, some young. ALL have bent the internet to their will. And ...
03.21.2018 Why We Need No Filter We kick off our new series, No Filter: Women Owning It Online, with New York Magazine’s The Cut. Because since the #metoo movement, we’re all rethinking what it means to be a woman in the world. But what about what ...
03.20.2018 My Digital Revolution Stories of life online, told live. We teamed up with Generation Women, a monthly event where women from their 20s to their 80s share stories on a theme. For this episode, the theme is My Digital Revolution. Tales from the ...
03.14.2018 Am I Normal? Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian, takes the numb out of numbers. She joins Manoush to talk about stats versus stories, how data defines normal, and average testicle size. That one’s an interactive iPhone chart. For real. Her hand-drawn ...
02.28.2018 What to Think About Before Posting Family Photos We asked how you share personal photos. Here’s what we learned from your 1,200 (!) answers. Psychologist Guy Winch joins Manoush to untangle our mixed posting emotions. Because our grams are complex. A trans listener is thankful his parents didn’t ...
02.14.2018 Have Dating Apps Killed Romance? Real OKCupid message: “Hi, good evening, nice photos. You are not fat.” It’s rough on dating apps. Can romance survive? Eric Klinenberg wrote Modern Romance with Aziz Ansari. This week, he joins Manoush to make the case that dating apps ...
02.07.2018 Help Us Collect Political Ads on Facebook Let’s build a database of political Facebook ads. Just in case someone needs to check on them later. Like, say, if the Russians bought thousands of ads to sway an election. Manoush’s privacy girlfriend, ProPublica’s Julia Angwin, is back with ...
02.06.2018 Meet an Online Emotional Escort We all need someone to tell (or text) our stories to. Even if they’re paid to text back. This week, Manoush meets an Invisible Girlfriend, earning pennies a message to create fake love. And an utterly wonderful man using the ...
01.31.2018 How to Find the Right Amount of Screen Time Screen time is a daily battle. Between kids and parents, between ourselves and our better judgment. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. There is a better way. Manoush gets the answers from Anya Kamenetz, NPR education correspondent and author ...
01.17.2018 Dear Manoush: The Advice Episode Is there a secret solution to information overload? Can random accounts ever truly be erased? How do I stay connected if I break up with social media? It’s Manoush’s brain, distilled into actionable pearls of wisdom. Plus, meet the woman ...
01.03.2018 Dan Harris Knows All Your Excuses for Not Meditating People have a lot of excuses for not meditating. Eight, in fact. Dan Harris knows them all. And he can help. ------- Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, our must-reads, and the news you need ...
12.27.2017 Search Inside Yourself For Peace and Joy Let’s create some calm as this year ends. It all starts with one deep breath, led by Google employee 107. This week, we revisit Manoush’s lovely interview with Chade-Meng Tan, who retired at 44 to meditate and search for world ...
12.20.2017 Look Into the Future with Black Mirror The creators of the Netflix hit Black Mirror on predicting the future, Twitter as a massive role-playing game, and nostalgia for meh. As season four of the Emmy-award-winning show approaches, we revisit Manoush’s conversation with show creators Charlie Brooker and ...
12.13.2017 Alexa, Is Amazon Taking Over The World? The tradeoffs we don’t see when we shop on Amazon. Why the answer isn’t to cancel your Prime. And yes, I bring Alexa’s new camera into my bedroom. ------- Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for info on new episodes, ...
12.06.2017 "You Deserve to Die" and Other Fun Conversation Starters People say mean things to Dylan Marron online. He takes that as an invitation to call them up and make friends. This week, the benefits of talking to our haters, and why it’s good for the country as well as ...
11.29.2017 Let’s Check The Tape An incomplete list of the objects listening to us: Siri. Alexa. Google Home. With so many recordings, the transcribed life isn’t far off. For better or for worse. This week, one intrepid woman records every minute of her life for ...
11.22.2017 The Lawsuit that Could Shine a Light on Cambridge Analytica How a single American’s quest for his own digital marketing profile may show us all how our data travels the world. And may even end up in the hands of foreign governments. ------- Subscribe to our Wednesday morning newsletter for ...
11.22.2017 Revisiting Cambridge Analytica’s Role in the Presidential Election From March, the first chapter in our look at Cambridge Analytica. We asked the controversial digital marketing firm what services they provided for Trump. And experimented with our own psychometric profiles. Listen to our latest episode to learn about the ...
11.21.2017 Revisiting Cambridge Analytica’s Role in the Presidential Election From March, the first chapter in our look at Cambridge Analytica. We asked the controversial digital marketing firm what services they provided for Trump. And experimented with our own psychometric profiles. Listen to our latest episode to learn about the ...
11.15.2017 It’s Not Over Nyet More spy terms explained, reasonable/sensible coping strategies for when democracy is under threat, and nyet more puns. This week: how to spot a botnet. How psychometrics sells sneakers - and worldviews. And how to make sure you’re not the useful ...
11.08.2017 Spy Terms of the Internyet Russian spy tactics have gotten an upgrade since the Cold War. This week how they work now: bad actors, active measures, advanced persistent threats. Cyberwar has its own vocabulary. So we got ourselves a tutor. Join Manoush and information warfare ...
11.01.2017 Nyet Just a Conspiracy Theory? If talking about democracy getting hacked feels like old news, it’s time to take a fresh look. This week, we separate fear from facts with Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast. Good thing they're funny guys, or ...
10.25.2017 Where Do I Go Now? There was a time humans were guided by stars, not satellite. Now you can beam into robots, or turn on GPS. But when we put ourselves on autopilot we may lose our minds. This week, Manoush outsources her body to ...
10.18.2017 Play Video Games for Your Mental Health You judge the person playing Candy Crush. Even when it’s you. But that mental fist pump from leveling up has real value. How to stop judging and use games for a strategic reset. With game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, ...
10.11.2017 Talking to Myself The Replika app chats with you, learns from you, and reflects you back. It starts to become you. And your AI self gets pretty real. Journalist Mike Murphy used the app to create his mini-me, and wrote about it for ...
10.04.2017 I Didn’t See Your Text And other fibs we tell our friends, family and lovers. Psychotherapist Esther Perel is back to call us on our bullsh*t. This is the second of our two-parter on how our phones create such intimacy and such distance. Esther’s new ...
09.27.2017 Ghosting, Simmering and Icing with Esther Perel Remember being dumped? Now, technology lets us delay, deflect, and disappear. Renowned pyschotherapist Esther Perel is here to help us fall in love better. Esther is the bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and the host of the podcast Where ...
09.20.2017 Forty Years of Coding In a Man's World Silicon Valley is still a man's world. And Ellen Ullman, who started programming in 1978, thinks it's high time for the rest of us to infiltrate. Ellen's new book, Life in Code, is full of great and awful stories. Her ...
09.13.2017 Eavesdropping On Epiphany José Cruz is a college student, research scientist, and phone power-user. He spent 6 hours in one day on his screen. So he wanted to cut back, make more time for research, reading, and mental drift. And he recorded himself ...
09.05.2017 Attention Please We deleted, we unplugged, we took walks. We made choices. We made time. Two years later, we catch up with some of the original Bored and Brilliant participants - some of the 20,000 people who joined our 2015 experiment. Today, ...
09.04.2017 Refresh Your Mind To encourage you to #GetBored and find brilliance, we made a weird earworm. It's an interview about the history of boredom... sound-designed to help you space out. A brain nap. With historian Peter Toohey, and some very soothing, meditative music.
08.15.2017 Bonus: Behind the Scenes at TED A surprise bonus, because Manoush's TED talk is online now (!) and she has some behind-the-scenes memories to share from the main stage. To celebrate - and vent (in a good way).
08.02.2017 Save the Planet! Part 1: I'm Gonna Take My Clothes Off This week, five episodes for five ways we can do better by the planet. First: warm up, strip down. Rethink the air conditioner. With David Biello, science curator for TED.
08.02.2017 Save the Planet! Part 2: Whale Poop Giant whale turds. A permanent shade over the sun. One is flashier, but that's the danger of it. This is poopier oceans vs. the climate quick fix. The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.
08.02.2017 Save the Planet! Part 3: Super Powered Sweet Corn We’ve made our plants bigger, juicier, and sturdier. Now can we make them better at sucking CO2? And should we? The last episode in our five-part series, with TED science curator David Biello.

Older episodes

Note to Self

What's Note to Self about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Note to Self episodes:

Note to Self is Back and We Start with The Big One: Kids and Screens

Note to Self is Back!

Rice Bunny: The Me Too Movement Comes to China

Dear (Data) Diary

A Different Kind of Streaking

Your Metadata is Showing

Whose Bot Army Is Following Manoush?

The Fourth Amendment Needs Your Attention

Is the Opioid Epidemic a Tech Problem?

How To Have No Filter

No Filter: Jasmyn Lawson

No Filter: Barbara Kruger

No Filter: Christiane Amanpour

No Filter: Amy Sherald

No Filter: Trace Lysette

No Filter: Lele Pons

Why We Need No Filter

My Digital Revolution

Am I Normal?

What to Think About Before Posting Family Photos

Have Dating Apps Killed Romance?

Help Us Collect Political Ads on Facebook

Meet an Online Emotional Escort

How to Find the Right Amount of Screen Time

Dear Manoush: The Advice Episode

Dan Harris Knows All Your Excuses for Not Meditating

Search Inside Yourself For Peace and Joy

Look Into the Future with Black Mirror

Alexa, Is Amazon Taking Over The World?

"You Deserve to Die" and Other Fun Conversation Starters

Let’s Check The Tape

The Lawsuit that Could Shine a Light on Cambridge Analytica

Revisiting Cambridge Analytica’s Role in the Presidential Election

Revisiting Cambridge Analytica’s Role in the Presidential Election

It’s Not Over Nyet

Spy Terms of the Internyet

Nyet Just a Conspiracy Theory?

Where Do I Go Now?

Play Video Games for Your Mental Health

Talking to Myself

I Didn’t See Your Text

Ghosting, Simmering and Icing with Esther Perel

Forty Years of Coding In a Man's World

Eavesdropping On Epiphany

Attention Please

Refresh Your Mind

Bonus: Behind the Scenes at TED

Save the Planet! Part 1: I'm Gonna Take My Clothes Off

Save the Planet! Part 2: Whale Poop

Save the Planet! Part 3: Super Powered Sweet Corn

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