Spark

Over the past year, we've had to reimagine our relationship with our technologies—and each other. This week, a look back at stories from early on in the pandemic that examine what we've learned about communication, and why in an online era we still need physical touch.

2020 has been a long year, full of challenges, as well as opportunities to do things differently. We look back at the progress we've made in everything from transportation, to retail to working remotely. And we think about the steps we still need to take to stay safe, so we can ask: Where do we go from here?

We have been lamenting our loss of focus and blaming our short attention spans on technology for ages. But are our attention spans actually dwindling - or is it just that there are just so many things clamouring for our attention all the time?

Thomas Hills, professor of psychology and director of the Behavioral and Data Science master's program at the University of Warwick in England, provides a historical overview of attention through the lens of tech and innovation.

TikTok has been a key part of Toronto artist Hima Batavia's pandemic experience. It started with dance moves and moved towards engagement with social justice issues and into a variety of communities she never would have learned about if not for TikTok.

Sarah Sharma, associate professor of media theory at ICCIT/Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and the director of the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, talks about the tech and media "solutions" to our current relationship with time, and what that all says about our position of power in society.

Many activities have moved to our screens and online over the course of the pandemic, but we're still much more likely to invest in an ergonomic chair than a VR headset. So what still stands in the way of wider adoption of virtual reality? Bow Valley College has rolled out brand new virtual-reality training for their practical nursing program. Nora MacLachlan, Dean of Health and Community Studies, tells us how VR helps students develop empathy and practice more real-world disease processes for respiratory illnesses. Then, veteran airline pilot David Culos shares how he's using his unexpected sabbatical from flying planes during the pandemic to develop flight training that integrates elements of VR and AR.

Finally, researcher Stephanie Llamas gives us a primer on VR, reviews the history of challenges in the industry, and discusses what the future may hold.

As we interact more - and more often - with our digital technologies, those interactions tell us a lot about who we are. Can we analyze behaviour on social media for mental health insights? Researchers Munmun De Choudhury and Koustuv Saha discuss their latest study of the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as gleaned from Twitter.

Plus, robots already work on factory floors, in dangerous situations, and even cleaning our floors, but to truly interact with us humans, they're going to need to understand our world. Mark H. Lee, author of How to Grow a Robot, talks about building robots that "get" us, using... childhood development psychology!

And: Better robots and AI require designing technology that doesn't actively harm humans. Can we get robots to learn things by letting them observe humans? Roboticist Odest Chadwicke Jenkins talks about training machines by (human) example, and how to avoid built-in racial bias in robotics and build more ethical AI.

Throughout the pandemic we've seen a resurgence of retro hobbies like bread making, tie-dyeing clothes, and going to the drive-in. Why is nostalgia our natural response in times of crisis? And, fasten those jetpacks! A look at the surprising nostalgic pleasures of our past visions of the future.

Escape can offer a reprieve from daily COVID life. But if you can't physically go anywhere, immersing yourself in fictional worlds - like the ones of online games - can help with the social isolation of the pandemic. We talk to University of Saskatchewan professor Regan Mandryk about how videogames can help us relieve stress and connect with others during the pandemic and beyond. Plus, Spark producer Olsy Sorokina talks about the appeal of Animal Crossing. 

And, while fictional worlds can seem like escapism, fiction often offers us insight into truth that daily reality denies us. Stephanie Lepp uses deepfake video tech to create fictional epiphanies and moments of personal transformation by public figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Alex Jones. As use of the technology extends beyond political disinformation campaigns, what are the ethics of using deepfakes to enlighten rather than deceive?

(This episode first aired in February 2020, and has been updated to reflect all that's happened in the world since.) How do we know what we know? In a digital landscape where social media dominates, and most people don't trust mainstream reporting, how can we be sure what we're seeing is actually real?

It's a question technology journalist and Atlantic magazine staff writer Alexis Madrigal has contemplated a lot, and he's finding a lot of noise among the signals of truth.

So what does this mean, more broadly? Social psychologist Arie Kruglanski says that humans need a shared concept of "truth" in order to have societal cohesion. And when that shared concept dissolves, bad things happen. Arie explains the collective risks of our unshared realities.

For all the good they give us, our personal tech has also become a major time suck. We lose hours of our waking lives to online experiences, especially in the past year, when our worlds became almost as tiny as the screens in our hands. Between work from home and doom-scrolling through social media, are we wasting time, or is this the "new normal" for spending it? And if we are going to be spending this much time online, can we improve online public spaces with better design?

In her new book, Time Smart, behavioral scientist Ashley Whillans argues that if you improve your "time affluence," you'll lead a happier life. She offers some practical tips on how we can use the pandemic disruption to improve our relationship with time. Deb Roy, Executive Director of the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Laboratory for Social Machines, discusses how we can improve existing digital spaces. And Spark Senior Producer Michelle Parise shares her experience with what she calls "Nightly Doomscroll Avoidance."

Past pandemics have been a huge influence on the way we design our cities and our homes. So what can the history of this relationship between public health and public spaces teach us during the COVID-19 pandemic? Sara Jensen Carr explores these lessons in an upcoming book, The Topography of Wellness: Health and the American Urban Landscape. We also talk to architect Terrell Wong about how we can return some of the fresh air back into our homes and offices without decreasing energy efficiency or increasing hydro bills. And materials scientist Aaswath Raman explains how to use ancient natural cooling technology for more efficient thermal regulation.