The Constant Feed: Reading Social Media

About the Programme/Event

If you spent more time reading your Facebook feed than a book in 2020, you are not alone. Social media is designed to be addictive and your attention is the hottest commodity right now. Join James Williams, co-founder of Time Well Spent and Dr Jean Liu, Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale-NUS as they discuss the attention economy and on how we can better resist the lure of social media.

About the Speakers

Jean Liu is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale-NUS. She completed her undergraduate studies and PhD in the University of New South Wales. Her research interest lies in how technological advances in media and medical technology impact everyday outcomes. She focuses on appetite regulation and social relationships using the methods of psychophysiology, neuroendocrinology, and behavioural paradigms from social and cognitive psychology.

James Williams is a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute. His research addresses the philosophy and ethics of attention and persuasion as they relate to technology design. Prior to this, he worked for over ten years at Google, where he received the Founders’ Award – the company’s highest honour – for his work on advertising products and tools. He is a co-founder of the Time Well Spent campaign, a project that aims to steer technology design towards having greater respect for users’ attention, goals and values.

About the Moderator

Victor Lim Fei is Assistant Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He researches and teaches on multiliteracies, multimodality, and digital learning. He has published widely in these areas and has led several research grants. He also serves as consultant for the World Bank on digital skills.

About Reading in the Age of Distraction

Reading in the Age of Distraction is a 5-part conversation featuring acclaimed international thinkers on reading well in the digital age. Speakers include Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains, Rolf Dobelli, author of The Art of Thinking Clearly, Alan Rusbridger, former Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian and Maryanne Wolf, author of Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. More details on all sessions can be found on go.gov.sg/rad!

Online Programme/Event Administrative Information

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