The Digital Human

Jane Charlton suffers from depersonalisation leaving her sense of self fragmented. In order to construct her sense of self she seeks the physical presence of people. For Jane social media means nothing. Dr Anna Ciaunica has studied Jane's experience of depersonalisation and what it tells us about the self, how we construct it and how important it is to maintain.

Professor Manos Tsakiris says we need to feel embodiment in order to be fully in touch with our selves. But how does the use of tech influence this? Manos says that the feeling of dis embodied brains or 'brains in jars' doesn't help our sense of self because the body is as important as the brain in constructing the self, even through out adulthood. Aleks goes into a float tank in LA to experience sensory deprivation, no phones to see if she can connect to her body and explores the benefits of doing so.

Brynn Duncan suffers from mast cell disease and can have an allergic reaction to almost anything at anytime. Her friends nick named her 'bubble girl' because she needs to constantly protect herself. For Brynn mentally detaching from a body which causes her great pain is critical and social media is one way she is able to do this. It enables her to live outside her body to escape and remove herself from the here and now. But Brynn says she has a hard time re attaching to herself once she has detached.

Produced by Kate Bissell

Researched by Jac Philllimore

Music by Antfood.

Aleks Krotoski wonders if it's really possible to convey a sense of joyful abandon online...

Producer: Victoria McArthur.

Aleks Krotoski enters the world of the unwatched, the unread and the unnoticed, all the content posted online that no-one ever sees.

It does not interject, it has endless patience and you gain empathy from shared experience. Aleks Krotoski explores how the online space has become our greatest confidante...

Aleks is looking at regret, that sinking, nagging feeling when we realise we have made the wrong choice or when things have not gone the way we hoped or envisaged. Ethan Zuckerman was one of the early architects of user generated content on the internet in the mid nineties. He created the code that lead to the pop up advert which he still regrets today but Aleks finds out not for the reasons you would think.

Denise Locke was on Flight 1549 which miraculously landed in the Hudson River in 2009. She had a choice to get on the flight that day because the weather delay meant she was texted by the airline to give her the option not to fly. She flew anyway and despite suffering post traumatic stress she does not regret the experience. It has changed her life, she now lives much more in the present.

Professor Amy Summerville runs a regret lab at Miami University, Ohio, she talks about the importance of regret and why it helps us to understand the world around us. Amy thinks that in our modern world we experience more regret, because of what she refers to as counterfactual thinking and the abundance of choice we now have because of technology.

Simon Yates one of the protagonists in the film and book Touching the Void, speaks about why he cut the rope his climbing partner was dangling on up a mountain in Peru and why he has no regrets about what he did.

Mel Slater and Doron Friedman both push the boundaries of what' s possible in virtual reality. They're exploring the use of clones in VR which are able to go back in time and re live past experiences. They believe this technology will have great impacts not only on our how we perceive the self and on identity but also how we experience and deal with regret in the future.

Produced by Kate Bissell.

It's the life we're told we want, where we just shout at a device and our needs are met as quickly as the supply chain allows. Aleks Krotoski explores frictionless digital living.

But is there value in friction? Aleks hears from someone who's life depends on it, mountaineer Andy Kirkpatrick. He has a reputation for stacking the odds against himself as much as possible; long routes, often climbed alone in the worst of conditions. Back on the ground Andy also needs friction to not get complacent, accept others views without question, to keep moving forward.

Without friction we risk falling prey to what economist Umair Haque describes as the infantilisation economy. One where we are diminished by being able to have our every need met by Amazon's Alexa. And the cost isn't just to us but also to the army of digital serfs peddling about in all weathers with those trademark boxes on their backs. Its a future that was foreseen as far back as the late 19th century by the likes of Nietzsche in his descriptions of the 'last men' a humanity living the most vanilla of existences without challenge or ambition to change.

Nothing sums this up better than the food replacement industry. No time to shop, cook, chew? Get everything you need nutritionally in a drink like Soylent or Huel - all in the name of efficiency. Its a world that fascinates anthropologist Jan English-Luek who for over 20 years has been observing trends in silicon valley.

Ultimately Aleks will ask what we're saving all this time and effort for and do we ever reap the benefits? Or does it just keep us where the digital world wants us, consuming in ever more efficient ways.

Producer: Peter McManus.

From the dawn of the civilisation, human beings have yearned to predict the future. In the past you might have consulted the Oracle at Delphi or sat down for a tarot reading to steer you through life.

Today, the internet offers amazing potential for predictive technology. There isn't a part of the natural world or human existence that isn't recorded and quantified, even the most mundane aspects of our lives are broadcasted into the universe thanks to our prolific use of social media.

By analysing the cornucopia of data we can detect patterns, understand behaviour... but can we really predict the future? Developers claim yes we can, from what movie will be a breakout hit, to when there will be a run on cold and flu medicine, even to the outcome of a child's' entire life - all we need is the right data. But do we want that?

In today's Digital Human Aleks Krotoski explores why it is we feel the need to predict the future to find out place in the present world, and discovers that prediction could end up being a cursed crystal ball if handled incorrectly.

Aleks Krotoski asks if blaming social media for recent political upheaval misses the point and we end up giving too much power to the technology and not enough to ourselves in how opinions become formed.

If we look hard enough, we have access to information online about other people, and about issues we may think we need to know. But is this always a good thing? Are there some things that we'd be better off not knowing?

Producer: Kate Bissell.

The human face is quintessential part of our identity - crucial for communication, expressing emotion and understanding our place in the world.

So what happens when that most human of interfaces is placed over what boils down to a cluster of motors and a few lines of code? Aleks Krotoski explores how we will be psychologically affected by machines that can look us in the eye and smile back at us.

Producer: Elizabeth Ann Duffy.