Researchers are learning more and more about the detrimental effects of too much screen time on our mental health, and especially our children’s. At the same time, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the importance of playtime for all animals, including humans.
Join us as we bat around the most recent research, including the upside of boredom for kids: guests are Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Professor David Toomey from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has just written a new book on why animals play.
Speakers
Dr. Michael Rich
Dr. Michael Rich is the Director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He’s also the author of The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World.
David Toomey
David Toomey is a professor of English at UMass-Amherst and co-director of the English Department’s Professional Writing and Technical Communication Program. He’s the author of Kingdom Of Play about “What Ball-bouncing Octopuses, Belly-flopping Monkeys, and Mud-sliding Elephants Reveal about Life Itself.”
Arts
Creativity and Stress
Actors from the Underground Railway Theater read a selection from But the Giraffe!, the curtain-raiser Tony Kushner wrote for the Broadway revival of Brundibar.
Politics
The Health of Democracy: A Polarized People
The American people have become polarized over the past 50 years. Michael Dimock, President of the Pew Research Center, discusses the implications for the health of our democracy with Ted Landsmark, president emeritus of the Boston Architectural College.
Technology
A.I. and the Death of Critical Thinking
Until we know more about the cognitive effects of technology like ChatGPT, should we be inserting it into the classroom? And if, as recent studies indicate, it homogenizes thinking and creativity, are we content to let our kids’ education go into experimental free fall?