Are you addicted to your smartphone?

We are “doing” the Hay Book Festival online this year. How does it compare to being at the real event? Well to start with the choice online is limited because of lack of funding.
The main sponsors, Baillie Gifford , were dropped because of the Fossil Free Book  campaigners . Having successfully targeted the Hay Festival, the biggest book festival in the world, they are now have their eyes on Edinburgh Book Festival.

 
Unless you are sitting in the front row or very close to it at the Festival you end up watching the event on one of the giant monitor screens dotted throughout the tent.
So, you might as well be at home on your own sofa instead of squashed , sardine like, along  with several hundred others on uncomfortable seats either freezing or sweltering depending on Hay’s fickle weather.

Today, Kaitlyn  Regehr ,  professor  of Digital Humanities at UCL talked to Sarah Lamptey, social activist and entertainer presenter.
Regehr made the case for a healthy digital diet akin to the multi-pronged campaign for smoking and drinking.
Yes we all love our digital devices but enough is now known about the harm they are doing  especially to young people. Advertisers are aware of it but their excuse is that it is “freedom of choice”.
Disinformation grabs more eyeballs than the truth and you stay on that site longer and that is what advertisers are paying for.
They  play on our negative fears and emotions.
 
She urges us to learn how to train our algorithms ( this was news to me). We don’t have to accept all the adverts pumped at us.
 
Even something as innocuous as sharing photos of children’s birthdays to family and friends has consequences.  Barclay Bank recently said that by 2030 there will be a whole generation of young people available for hackers who can access enough shared vital information that they can hack into their bank accounts.
 
Regehr message : We have to learn to control the machines, not let the machines control us. And the future belongs to those who successfully manage it.