Shocking Truth: Tech is Changing Our Perception, Reality and Behaviour

Em and Craig dive deep into technology's profound impact on human behaviour, exploring everything from AI-generated images with three-eyed cats to how the printing press revolutionised society. This wide-ranging conversation examines the uncomfortable truth: we're living through a technological shift that's fundamentally changing how humans think, connect, and experience reality.

The Historical Context

The hosts trace technology's transformative power through history, from Gutenberg's printing press enabling mass literacy and challenging authority, to the Industrial Revolution moving women from homes into factories, fundamentally reshaping society. Em notes how each technological leap creates both expansion and contraction—initial chaos followed by adaptation and new innovation.

Eight Core Ways Tech Affects Human Behaviour

Em outlines how technology is reshaping humanity across multiple dimensions:

• Social Connection: While 67.9% of Earth's population is now online, connections are less deep. We're cognitively designed to connect with maybe 200 people, not thousands on social platforms.

• Shortened Attention Spans: Constant quick fixes prevent us from building resilience, accessing flow states, or learning deeply. We're avoiding discomfort rather than developing the capacity to handle it.

• Cognitive Changes: Multitasking (really rapid task-switching) exhausts us more than the work itself. The constant shifting between tasks depletes cognitive resources faster than focused deep work.

• Memory and Navigation: Craig shares how Google Maps has replaced spatial awareness—remembering London taxi drivers whose brains were literally wired differently from their knowledge of streets. Em wonders if rising ADHD diagnoses might actually be brains adapting to technology rather than a disorder.

The Reality Distortion Problem

The conversation tackles a disturbing trend: our subconscious can't distinguish between AI-generated content and reality. From Photoshop's impact on body image to today's sophisticated deepfakes, we're losing the ability to trust what we see. Em describes asking ChatGPT to create a birthday invitation, only to discover the generated cats had three eyes and extra heads—a glimpse into early-stage AI before it got frighteningly good.

The Attention Economy's Dark Side

Em reveals a troubling pattern: AI trained on human engagement learns that negative content gets more clicks, creating a feedback loop that may be skewing AI toward negativity. She questions whether technology has genuinely had a negative effect on human behaviour, or whether negative content simply generates more engagement and thus more training data.

Process Versus Outcome

Craig admits to using Claude AI to rewrite a letter to a newspaper—and it did a better job. This sparks discussion about what we lose when AI does the creative heavy lifting. Em's pottery analogy drives home a crucial point: not everything needs commercial value. The creative process itself—the frustrating research, the failures, the practice—transforms information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.

Job Market Disruption

While people panic about AI replacing jobs, the hosts offer unexpected hope: humans will continue innovating ways to work alongside technology, just as they always have. Em emphasises that our fundamental drive to connect, create, and innovate will persist despite technological disruption.

The Surprising Hero

Craig's hero of the week is Sarah Wynn Williams, former Facebook executive and author of "Careless People." She broke a seven-year silence to warn that society is sleepwalking into the same mistakes with AI that occurred with social media. Despite Facebook's gag order preventing her from promoting the book, her insights about emotional targeting of adolescent girls and the concentration of AI power in social media companies (like Meta's LLaMA model) offer crucial warnings.

The Paradox of Progress

Perhaps the most striking theme: despite technology's potential for harm, both hosts maintain optimism about humanity. Em argues that just as the printing press was weaponised but ultimately elevated humanity, current technological disruption will eventually stabilise. Humans fundamentally want to connect and treat each other well—technology may create temporary chaos, but our humanness will ultimately triumph.

Key Resources

• "The Psychology of Artificial Intelligence" by Tony Prescott
• "Humans and AI in the Workplace" podcast with Dr. Deborah Panucci and Lisa Hart
• "Careless People" by Sarah Wynn Williams (get the hard copy before it disappears!)

The Bottom Line

Technology is simultaneously connecting and isolating us, accelerating productivity while eroding deep thinking, and creating opportunities while destroying established skills. The key? Maintaining critical thinking, preserving human connection, and remembering that behind every screen should be a human seeking authentic engagement. As Craig puts it: humanity and effort matter—not just a 20-word prompt.

Human connection remains irreplaceable. Go have real conversations. Support real artists. Maybe even pat a cat (with the normal number of eyes).