I admired Brooke Gladstone for beginning her talk by discussing the recent tragedy of the Las Vegas shooting. Part of the reason I admired it so much was because after a full day of classes, none of my professors mentioned it which bothered me. It made sense for her to talk about it since she has dedicated her life and career to the media. She added a comical twist to the subject when she discussed people taking to twitter and posting photos of missing family members. It was funny because it turned out they were posting pictures of random people such as, and this is one of the examples she used, a famous porn star. After a serious day, she made everyone chuckle that night. She then proceeded to talk about our generation and the generation that is involved in technology as generations that are buried in distraction. She backed up her point by providing evidence of a group of college students being put in a room with an electric shock button. Some were so bored that they pressed the button and received a shock. She went on explaining that it isn’t our fault and that we are just wired that way. Gladstone then challenged the crowd to do one simple thing that would benefit us, whether that would be deleting an app for a week that you used frequently and takes up time in your day or while your commuting (walking to class/ driving somewhere) try not to go on your phone. These examples contributed to her point about how we build boredom and I felt like that connected well with her point about distraction. A few other points I loved during her talk were, one her use of Brave New World and comparing it with the technology takeover. I thought that was a brilliant contrast, and if anyone has read the book you will agree that it is freaky, but somewhat applicable to our rising technological culture. She mentioned the thesis of her book, The Influencing Machine which is “the problem with the media is the problem with us” and it contributes to the idea that we make up the media and it is what we want to see because we create it. Last, and this was my favorite point, she made the claim that the culture we are living in now, and most of the generations that are consumed by technology, contain a lack of empathy. She said something about how if we just looked more people in the eye it would make a big difference and I think that point meant most to me is because I agree with her.
