What if social apps appealed to our angels, rather than our demons? — Psychologists have long-known of the Michelangelo phenomenon, which describes how, in a healthy romantic relationship, your partner’s influence helps you achieve your ideal self. But the effect only works when the individual’s vision of their partner aligns with the partner’s own vision of their ideal self. It doesn’t work if…

Information is growing faster than our capacity for wisdom. — Twenty-five years ago, Harvard professor E.O. Wilson said “we are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” Fast forward to the present and information is created at an even faster rate, with society creating the equivalent of 300 billion Encyclopedia Britannicas each day, but how much of it is wise…

Wisdom is built from the ground up on an algorithm-friendly design. Success for an app relies largely on how well the right piece of content can be surfaced to the right member at the right time to keep them interested. TikTok is a master at this. …

Audio is the most human of mediums, the most empathic, the most vulnerable, the most true. Consider text, so easily scanned, so manipulated toward reaction and outrage. Consider photo and video, so focused on appearance, on falsity. Only audio holds the promise Vannevar Bush imagined in 1945 … a human-machine…