The Big Story

(This is the final part of a five-part series called Interconnected, detailing how technology is changing humanity.)

When you were a child, did you have limits on the amount of TV you could watch? Or video or computer games you could play? Too much of that stuff "would rot your brain", right? It was universally accepted that too much screen time would hinder kids development.

But is that still true in a world where children spent more than a year working, playing and learning online? In a world where my child will fall behind if she doesn't learn how to use a touchscreen? In a world where much of the rest of their lives will be spent online, how connected should children be?

GUEST: Dr. Nusheen Ameenuddin, chair of The American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic. 

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(This is part four in a five-part series called Interconnected, detailing how technology is changing humanity.)

The Lomi is a high-tech composter made by a Canadian company. It looks elegant and sleek. It claims to turn your leftover organic waste into compost, with no mess, no smell and no need to feel "gross"—which is how it assumes everyone feels about garbage.

But does it work? Will its compost actually do for your plants what regular, messy organic waste does? Or does it sanitize the process and remove the mess, but also the life? This is a look at how modern technology deals with death and decay, two things that humans have been trying to avoid for a very, very, very long time.

GUEST: Tynan Stewart, independent journalist based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tynan wrote about how the Lomi, a plastic composting gadget exemplifies tech’s desire – and failure – to smooth away imperfections of life and death for Real Life Magazine.

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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(This is part three in a five-part series called Interconnected, detailing how technology is changing humanity.)

Do you know how much sleep you got last night? How much of it was REM sleep? What was your heart rate? Should you be worried if it was high? Just how fit are you, exactly?

Many of us know more about ourselves—from exercise habits, to vital signs, to where we go and how fast we get there—than any humans in history. What are we doing with that knowledge? It can empower us to change our habits, or it can help us give into our more anxious impulses. What happens when we fully quantify ourselves?

GUEST: Natasha Schull, cultural anthropologist and associate professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Her second book, Keeping Track, explores the relationship between an individual self and her personal data by exploring the advance of digital data-gathering techniques, like wearables.

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

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(This is part two in a five-part series called Interconnected, detailing how technology is changing humanity.)

We tend to think of algorithms as something hidden and unknowable, at least to us. But of course they are not. Algorithms are tools, and humans are tool-users. And right now there are organizations and people using these tools to hack away at the social and political ties that bind us all together.

It's not something that just happened by accident. The technology made this kind of warfare possible, and as we have always done, we began to use new weapons on one another. What remains to be seen is if we can find peace at the end of the road...

GUEST: Renee DiResta, technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies.

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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(This is part one in a five-part series called Interconnected, detailing how technology is changing humanity.)

Have you by any chance been struggling to focus recently? Maybe you used to read long books, or dive into old hobbies and learning new things, and now that feels a lot harder than it should. You are not alone. Research shows that we are suffering through a profound loss of attention, and it's getting worse every day.

So what happened to us? Did we lose ourselves in our new devices, or has our attention been deliberately stolen? And what can we do to get it back?

GUEST: Johann Hari, journalist and author of Stolen Focus

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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Under the shadow of the MacKay Bridge in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the protest camp of Eddy Carvery has stood firm as the longest civil rights protest in North American history.  

Eddy has remained in defiance for nearly half a century. In this episode, Eddy introduces us to the protest that has defined his adult life. The fight to claim the land of Africville back for its people.

If you care about racism, displaced peoples, and social justice, then you need to know the story of Africville Forever. Listen to the rest of the series here. 

Join the fight at AfricvilleForever.com

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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According to race-based data released by the Toronto Police Service earlier this month, Black people and other people of colour are disproportionately over-policed compared to white people. 

The data found that people of colour were 1.2 to 1.6 times more likely to face force when engaging with Toronto police in 2020. 

Alongside the release of these findings, which the police service was mandated to conduct, was an apology from interim police chief James Ramer… that nobody asked for. For decades, Black and other racialized people have known that systemic racism exists within the police force. 

So, what will these findings mean for the future of policing in Canada’s largest city? 

Today, we speak to assistant professor in the department of health and society at the University of Toronto, Notisha Massaquoi who helped develop the framework for the Toronto Police Service’s race-based data policy. 

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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You will no doubt be shocked to learn that the federal liberal government may have tried to politically influence an agency that should be independent. Who would have thought? Evidence released at an inquiry into the Portapique massacre seems to indicate that government officials the RCMP commissioner to release information about a weapon used by the shooter.

We don't know yet if the request came from the government, or the commissioner herself. We don't know yet if the Prime Minister or Public Safety Minister were personally involved. But what do we know? What needs to happen next? And will this divert attention away from an incredibly important inquiry into the worst mass shooting in Canadian history?

GUEST: Stephen Maher, Nova Scotian journalist and novelist, writing in The Line

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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Lately we've been wondering: why are we so distracted all the time? Always on our phones, tracking steps, anxious about the future, angry about politics? It probably has something to do with the leap we made into the digital world in 2020 — a rapid acceleration of what has been a slow process for most of our lives. But we wanted to know — what is it doing to us as a species? Because it feels like we’re evolving… digitally.
 

Starting July 4, join us for a special series called, Interconnected, that looks into what the first 30 years of life online can tell us about humanity’s present and future.

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

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The City of Ottawa paid millions of dollars for train cars that wouldn't run in the winter. The doors stuck if people tried to open them to get out. One derailment shut down the system for weeks on end. The story of what should have been the crown jewel of Ottawa's transit system is a tragic comedy.

But as an inquiry right now is demonstrating, it's also a lesson to other Canadian cities. Because there's nothing as valuable to a city as public transit done right, and nothing more demoralizing than public transit done wrong. So what sent Ottawa's train project so far (sorry) off the rails?

GUEST: Fatima Syed, Ontario Reporter, The Narwhal

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

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