This week’s show is a fun and fascinating consideration of all the ways we’re shaped by technology and how we are technological beings, more and more with each passing year. Grant and Brooke share their earliest internet, email, and social media interactions, and connect with guest Vauhini Vara, whose new book, Searches, explores our online footprints, how technology shapes us, and how we both exploit and get exploited by big tech—like Google, YouTube, and social media companies. A truly interesting consideration of how far we’ve evolved alongside technology.

Vauhini Vara began her journalism career as a technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal and later launched, edited and wrote for The New Yorker. Her latest book is Searches, a work of journalism and memoir about how big technology companies are changing our understanding of our selves and our communities. Her debut novel, The Immortal King Rao, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her story collection, This is Salvaged, was longlisted for The Story Prize and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.

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