Hit Pause

After discovering a bit about Jean Piaget and his child psychology theories, it is time to listen to someone who knows best: a mother. Caroline Naito is a mother in the Silicon Valley, on the frontlines of raising two girls, in this age of social media, new technologies and new challenges. We listen to her, her life wisdom, and discover through her eyes the story of two beautiful souls trying to make sense of this new world. We ponder about education, children sign language, the joy of making new neuronal connections and the social media addiction of young adults.

In our continued voyage through the human psyche, we explore the joy of learning, and phases a baby, a child goes through as they learn. We turn to Jean Piaget, renowned child psychologist to learn and reflect on how WE learned. We ponder what it takes to learn, as adults, and we trace a few ideas about those extraordinary times where kids are learning, with and through social media, novel ways of thinking, being and behaving.

In this episode, we converse with Reza Malekzadeh, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, citizen of the world. Reza shares with us his career, his failures and lessons learned from them. We then dive a bit deeper to explore what makes the emotive engine of an entrepreneur, and Reza opens up a bit about his own past and personal story. We finish with a few lessons about what makes the difference between a solid entrepreneur project, and just a dream.

In this second reverie of the second season, we go back to babies. For they are the foundation of who we are, as individuals, as society. We explore their core needs, and why those shape the foundation of a human psyche, and thus, of the social fabric, and social media.

We start Season 2 in conversation with Jeff Scargle, esteemed scientist and astrophysicist at NASA AMES. We explore with Jeff a different outlook on the Silicon Valley, the technology changes of the past decades... the joys of discovering a passion, and pursuing it. We discuss progress, and the human spirit behind technology endeavors. 

In this last episode of Season 1, we trace the path for the format changes of season 2... with interviews, a dialog, and a descent into the themes of the human mind and psyche. If the media we consume and create also changes us, there is a connection between who we are and how we exchange and communicate. What drives a human being? What fundamental forces shape and animate a psyche? Join me to wrap-up this first season of HIT PAUSE.

As we approach the end of Season 1 of HIT PAUSE, I reflect on my personal media usage; on the countless studies which have studied and proven its addictive nature. And we trace the path for a sense of direction about the future of social media: the creation of inner boundaries. This requires time, silence, turning off the onslaught of the media stream, to find within the inner filters, and give us distance. Time, silence, boundaries. We get closer to the themes of Season 2.

Social media was made for us, by us, humans. 

It's thus only fair that we look at ourselves. From early investors to public investors, from public investors to end users, we are social media. It was designed to be addictive, and tap into our psyche's subconscious substrate and core behavioral patterns.

Are we aware of it? 

How do I process my own rapport to it? 

How do you? 

The week after the George Floyd riots, we look at the question of morality and social media. Morality is hard concept to grasp, at an age of immediate information transmission, hyper-virality, and mass manipulation. How are platform companies responding? We look at the four classes of responses: 1. rules based editing; 2. removal of a post; 3. flagging and 4. virality throttling.

But is it enough? How are decisions made? Does a Silicon Valley company need to think about the moral implications of its technology advances?

We look at the three phases of the history of the social media wave: laisser-faire, basic legal regulation, followed by core questions about the rapport between market actors. But we soon see that it's really economic views which guide most of those phases, not the moral imperative of answering how do we look at the value to society, and intrinsic quality of the content exchanged.

We look at how, in the past, technology waves, economic imbalances and a radical shift in communication medium create a fertile terrain for wars to explode. How do we get there? What can the past help us understand about the future? Has social media, and the rise of the new digital economy created a tinder box? And are there glimmers of hope, and if yes, which ones?

We explore the comparison between a nuclear reaction and social media. Through the great metaphor of HBO's documentary "Chernobyl", and its fifth episode, we learn about what happens in a nuclear reactor: uranium, boron rods, positive void coefficient, negative temperature coefficient, and the necessary balance between all elements. Have we reached a boiling point, in our practice of social media? Who will be the ways we can keep this new medium in check?

Where we look at the 5 fundamental components of a media communication theory: emitter, receptor, medium, container, and content. We then explore the link between them, and what it means in today's day and age. We also start a new segment where we feature your letters, comments, opinions and answers.

A little voyage through the past 15 years, an accelerated look into the birth of social media. A time for heretics to defy common ideas; a time to rethink media... or was it a time to tap into pent up feelings, and the gut of the audience, now made creators en masse?

A first episode, a way to say hello, and introduce this adventure which commences.