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A common piece of advice for those who are chronically online is to “go touch grass.” This upcoming season of How To, co-hosts Natalie Brennan and Julie Beck will look more closely at the often-fraught, always-changing relationship people have with technology. They’ll explore how people can be more intentional with their devices, rebuild their attention span, and find a way to thrive in this fast-paced, image-driven culture. Episodes will feature personal experimentation and conversations with experts in anxiety, education, and new technology. The first episode of How to Touch Grass publishes Monday, July 27, and new episodes are released every Monday for five weeks. Subscribe now.
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The following is a transcript:
Julie Beck: If you had one word—it can be any part of speech you want—to describe your overall relationship to technology at this moment in time, what would that word be?
Person 1: Antagonistic?
Person 2: Complicated.
Person 3: Fraught.
Person 4: Connection.
Person 5: I was gonna say “reluctant,” but maybe that’s not right.
[Music]
Julie Beck: I’m Julie Beck, a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Natalie Brennan: And I’m Natalie Brennan, a producer at The Atlantic.
Beck: And in this upcoming season of How To, we’ll be exploring the often-fraught, always-changing relationship people have with technology. And the ways that in this moment, the terms of the relationship are being renegotiated.
Clay Routledge: Around two-thirds of Gen Z adults say they’re nostalgic for a time before they were alive. They love technology, but they wanna be in control of it, not feel controlled by it.
Brennan: We’ve been thinking a lot about how our relationship with our devices is all tangled up in our relationships to one another.
Jenny Odell: We don’t realize how much of our habits kind of live in other people around us. Think about it: When do you pick up your phone? It’s when the person you’re talking to picks up their phone.
Beck: And how tech helps us solve some problems, while also creating new ones.
Sophie Gilbert: I don’t think anyone is supposed to see their own face as much as we do now. We’re just like front-facing camera, front-facing camera, front-facing camera, and it’s weird. It’s warping our brains.
Brennan: We’re searching for ways to un-warp our brains.
Beck: A common piece of advice for those who have been brain-rotted by the internet is to “go touch grass.” Um, so are you also telling us to touch grass?
Odell: Yeah, pretty much.
[Music]
Beck: Coming this summer is How to Touch Grass.
Brennan: The first episode arrives Monday, July 27. Subscribe now.
