How memory changes you
We like to think of memory as a record of the past. But that’s not really what it is. Memory doesn’t keep the past — it can also remake it. It stitches fragments into stories, and those stories — true...
21 Aug 59min
Freud was right about one thing
Sigmund Freud is probably the most famous psychoanalyst. Yet many of his theories have been critiqued or discredited. So is there anything we can still learn from the father of psychoanalysis? In tod...
17 Aug 58min
Why straight dating feels bleak
The internet is rife with chatter about “heteropessimism,” the feeling that gender relations are broken and heterosexual relationships are doomed. But is this just cynical discourse, like a coping mec...
14 Aug 57min
We’re postliterate
What happens when we read less? What does that do to our ability to understand complex ideas, or even think for ourselves?In today’s episode, guest host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Atlantic staff write...
10 Aug 51min
What does a parent owe their child?
The Gray Area is taking a short break this week — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable. In it, host Noam Hassenfeld and ...
7 Aug 27min
The vanishing pleasures of daily life
Sean talks with writer and philosopher Ian Bogost about his new book The Small Stuff. They discuss what modern life has lost in its pursuit of convenience, efficiency, and optimization. From stick shi...
3 Aug 47min
How Google broke the internet
The internet is changing. For years our primary gateway to the internet has been search engines: we ask a question, a list of websites pops up, and we choose which ones to click on. But we are rapidly...
31 Jul 41min
The illusion of the ‘self’
Sean Illing talks with neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of The Self Delusion. Berns claims that the idea of a unified, persistent self is a kind of illusion, and that we are better understood as m...
27 Jul 43min
