Is email evil?
To mark the publication of my new book and the School of Life Live tour, I’ll be publishing a few of the columns I write for the BBC’s international site, BBC Future, on this blog. First up, one of my...
View ArticleCyborg Dreams
I recently wrote a long essay for Aeon Magazine on one of my favourite topics: technology and intimacy, and the strange ways in which we are shackled to the screens surrounding us. The first few paras...
View ArticleWhy do tech neologisms make people angry?
I’ve recently been writing a number of pieces linked to my new book about technology and language, Netymology. Below is the start of a feature for the BBC magazine about the history of tech neologisms...
View ArticleI type, therefore I am
I’ve written another essay for the marvellous Aeon magazine, exploring a topic close to my heart: how the act of typing onto screens – and the sheer number of people now actively involved in doing this...
View ArticleThe attention economy
I’ve written my third essay this year for Aeon magazine, exploring the idea of the attention economy – and what it may cost us to pay for content with our time, clicks, tweets and endlessly aggregated...
View ArticleTechnology’s greatest myth
I wrote this at the end of last year as my final column for BBC Future, aiming to make 2014 a year for longer essays and projects (and paying attention to my young son). It’s a reflection on a couple...
View ArticleAutomated ethics
My latest essay for Aeon magazine asks when it’s ethical to hand our decisions over to machines, and when external automation becomes a step too far. The first few paras are below: read the rest on the...
View ArticleWhat will our descendants deplore?
I have a new essay on the BBC Future website today, exploring a question that I took to a selection of the world’s brightest minds: from James Lovelock to Peter Singer, via Tim Harford and Greg Bear....
View ArticlePaper vs screens
Here’s a piece I wrote recently for the Guardian, looking at a favourite topic: negotiating the different experiences of print and digital reading and writing, and trying to move beyond the notion that...
View ArticleAre you over-connected?
I’ve been working for a long time on this essay for BBC Future, and am delighted finally to see it online together with some of Josh Pulman’s brilliant photos. The first few paras are below. Do read...
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