Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
From fitness tracking devices to search engines, it’s easy to think of personalised technologies as convenient shortcuts and useful tools for working towards goals. But, argues James Williams, a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute and a former Google employee, the primary aim of personalised tech is to keep users coming back by any means necessary – and often in a way that encourages empty distraction. In this brief animation featuring audio from a 2017 lecture at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in London, Williams makes the case that the consolidation of the ‘attention economy’ to just a handful of companies is an unprecedented and deeply fraught human experiment – and one that demands active, attentive resistance.
Video by the RSA
Director: Olga Makarchuk
video
Design and fashion
Refined towards imperfection – a ceramic artist recreates a rare Korean treasure
15 minutes
video
Wellbeing
Through a poetic account of childhood trauma, one woman reclaims her past
28 minutes
video
Politics and government
‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai
20 minutes
video
Global history
The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth
5 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
A biologist on the sorrows of documenting the Great Salt Lake’s collapse
6 minutes
video
Design and fashion
Household items are reborn in a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’
11 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Meet the man who uncovered the scandal of nuclear testing in South Australia
13 minutes
video
Global history
The strange journey of the Parthenon Marbles to the British Museum
10 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Laura fights to protect the magnificence of wild horses running free
6 minutes