Voices of Swell
@voices · 3:43
The Voice of Tiffany Shlain
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She closed the Ted Women's Conference, the TEDMED conference back in the day. She was an on air expert for ABC's Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer. She has been with the Web since the beginning. She's an extraordinary filmmaker, by the way, about these topics of connecting. In fact, she has a film called Connected, an autobiography about love, death and technology. And I went to the premiere, and it was extraordinary
Voices of Swell
@voices · 0:08
Hey as promised, here is the website address to learn more about Tiffany, and a quick way to get her book 24 six
Tiffany Shlain
@TiffanyShlain · 2:26
And it was such an important project in my work and my life. And then really the book I think I mentioned in the film. I just started doing techshops, which at that point I had just started. And now here I am, almost eleven years later. And it's been so profound of an impact on my life, my family's life, my sense of well being, mental health, creativity, productivity, all of that that I eventually wrote a book about it
Voices of Swell
@voices · 1:19
And I just want to ask you to speak to information overload and the connection between Overload and the Tech Shabbat and any advice you have for people who are hungry for inspiration, hungry for all these great people's, minds of people and taking in all the philosophical things they say. And how do you manage all the things that inspire you so that you don't feel like your brain's exploding?
Tiffany Shlain
@TiffanyShlain · 1:25
And I almost feel like during the week, the other six days, there's so much information coming at me, I can't process it quick enough. And so anything that's really intrigued to me, I kind of put in a pile, usually books as soon as I print out articles that I want to think about on Saturday. So in many ways, I think that information overload is because we're on screens 24/7, and there's no processing time
Voices of Swell
@voices · 2:12
But you have friends that you probably are concerned about and things like that. But can you speak to addiction word and what you'd like to see happens at the society level where people like Tristan can actually help people see it as a disease
Tiffany Shlain
@TiffanyShlain · 2:55
What you think is the same thing of just like, unwind from the day, but unwinding with thinking about perfect moments, even in the stress of it all, is a really powerful tool. So I think addiction and what Tristan Harris talks about, and which I certainly see as well, is that I started the Web Awards back in the 90s. It was a very utopian view of what the web could be. It could connect us and all these new ways. No one charged for anything
Voices of Swell
@voices · 1:15
I forget what Prince said. But it was if you remember what Prince said, please tell us. But to the point of volume versus quantity versus quality, it really seems that the next wave of our engagement with media should be about quality versus quantity. And that's what leads to this whole idea of tech Shabbat, as well as if we can pare down how much we take in, then the quality of what we take in becomes more scrutinized. And that's a great thing
Tiffany Shlain
@TiffanyShlain · 1:26
So I think about taking in more quality content if we're just on all the time and we're just like swimming in a sea of the stuff coming out of it, you can't even curate your experience. I'm very into. I highly curate on social, not on Twitter, Twitter, I'm very open
Voices of Swell
@voices · 1:14
Okay. So here's a paradox. And you're right. By the way, we are what we eat. So it's like having the discipline to curate is critical. But the paradox I want to talk about right now is a lot of people are experiencing covet in a very different way than some nuclear families are. I know a lot of people who during COVID have been lonelier than ever. And I'm sure you could be lonely with lots of people around
Tiffany Shlain
@TiffanyShlain · 2:34
I'm Jewish, not religious, but we do the Shabbat dinner outside on the deck at a distance. So I would first say meet in a park if you can, and do a picnic. If you have a deck, invite them over to have dinner with you. This isn't about not being social. It's just not being social on screen. So we are allowed to be with people with masks on at a distance. I would recommend that
Voices of Swell
@voices · 2:50
But is it possible? Can we get back to some kind of place where we can get people healthy again around their consumption of media? I'm particularly worried about people in their teens who are. Your statistics are staggering. And I'd love some stories about hope around this area of collaboration. So when you get a chance, thanks again. And I'm excited that you're here on as well
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