robin dunbar – Stilgherrian

10 June 201510 June 2015

Talking digital detox on ABC 891 Adelaide

Do you think you need a “digital detox”? You know, something to break your “addiction” to digital devices? That’s what I just spoke about on ABC 891 Adelaide.

Drive presenter Michael Smyth and his team had heard about the Digital Detox and Camp Grounded holiday camps in the US, based on the summer camp concept…

Trade in your computer, cell phone, email, Instagrams, clocks, schedules, work-jargon, networking events and conferences for an off-the-grid weekend of pure unadulterated fun in the redwoods.

… so I was invited to give my opinion. Before I spoke, though, they played CNet’s report of a visit to Camp Grounded, as well as a vox pop of people recorded earlier today in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall.

Here’s the full 11-minute extravaganza.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.0MB)

The book I mentioned was Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. And something I meant to refer to, but didn’t manage to fit in, was We donâ€™t need digital detox, but there is a need to rethink our relationship with technology by Natasha Mauthner, Personal Chair at the University of Aberdeen.

21 February 201525 January 2019

The 9pm Malcolm and the Cnuts

Malcolm Turnbull launching NICTA Techfest 2015

Attorney-General Soapy the Ankle QC demonstrates his openness to new information. And Malcolm Turnbull invents a new future for Australia. It’s a turbulent future, and Turnbull says we just have to deal with it.

In this podcast — an episode that should never have happened — there’s talk of technology, foreskins, special new jargon terms, and the media.

05 November 200920 January 2024

Media140: What do journos do better, exactly?

[This is my presentation for the Media140 Sydney panel “Do Journos Do it Better? Journalists in SocMedia Communities”. This is being posted here automatically, at 5pm, just as the panel is scheduled to start. Given that sessions earlier in the day may cover similar ground, I may well re-word things as I go.]

“Do journos do it better?” Do journos do what better? I think this is actually the more interesting question: What is it that journalists actually do in our society?

Or, to stick with the question, what do they do in “social media communities” — although as I’ll explain, all communities are “social media communities”?

Now if I were presenting an Oscar I’d start by quoting the dictionary. “The Macquarie Dictionary defines ‘journalist’ as ‘someone engaged in journalism’.”

Very helpful.

However “journalism” in turn is glossed as “the occupation of writing for, editing, and producing newspapers and other periodicals, and television and radio shows”.

So the question as stated is meaningless. Of course journalists are better at “It” — journalism — because they’re the ones doing it. If you’re not a journalist you’re not doing journalism, therefore you’re not merely bad at it, you’re not even doing it at all!

11 September 2008

Links for 11 September 2008

Here are the web links I’ve found for 11 September 2008, posted with melons and a sprig of parsley.

What “Battle for Australia”? | Unleashed: Remembering the sacrifices of our WWII servicemen and women is a Good Thing, but do we have to invent a spurious “Battle for Australia” to do so?
I’m So Totally, Digitally Close to You | NYTimes.com: A fine overview of the impact which (especially) Twitter has upon how our social lives work. The term “ambient awareness” is put into context nicely. Robin Dunbar gets a mention, as he should. [This article may now be behind a registration-wall, but registration is free.]