While you're using the internet to stream this podcast, Adam and this week's guest
Ethan Zuckerman are talking about how we're actually ruining the internet. Things are getting meta here. Ethan, who appeared on
Adam Ruins the Internet, is a fascinating person who has studied the internet and its affects for years. He's currently the director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and associate professor of the practice in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences at the
MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists.
On the podcast, Adam and Ethan discuss how people are the products of free services like Facebook and Google, not the consumers. They also go into Ethan's early days working at Tripod where he invented the pop-up ad, and why we need more weirdness like the hamster dance on the internet.