How often do you check a screen to see what’s going on in the news?

It’s probably a lot more often than you think. Consider your Twitter feed. Consider your Facebook timeline. Consider how many text message alerts you are signed up to receive. The list keeps growing, doesn’t it? CNN turned the news into a twenty-four hour cycle, and the Internet pushed it further into real time. Have you ever stopped to wonder just what, exactly, this constant barrage of news and information is doing to our brains and to our lives? Alain de Botton has thought about this. Deeply. If you have never heard of de Botton, there is no time like the present. He writes books and is often described as a modern day philosopher. He writes a lot, and has had enormous success as an author. He writes about everything from love and architecture to work and travel. He recently published a book called, The News – A User’s Manual, that looks at how much the news has changed, and how it has become as dominant in our society as religion once was (yes, this is deep stuff). In this fascinating talk at Google, he discusses some of the concepts in his book, while trying to explain how all of this news, everywhere, is impacting us as human beings.

This is an amazingly fascinating and engaging presentation…