World Events

Guest: Karen North, PhD., Director of the Univeristy of Southern California's Annenberg's Digital Social Media Program  Many parents take vacations with their children with the hope of digitally disconnecting their family for a bit. But with the internet availability that exists nowadays, WiFi-free vacations are rather difficult to come by. We discuss possible solutions to digital disconnection today.

Guest: Brian Roberts, PhD., Professor of English at Brigham Young University  In the mid-1950s, American expatriate novelist Richard Wright visited Indonesia for the Bandung Conference. He referred to this conference as “a conglomeration of the world’s underdogs” because it included representatives of 29 countries, nearly all of which had been colonized by Western Europe but which were now free. Professor Brain Roberts is an expert on Richard Wright and just recently returned from Indonesia, where for the last six months he has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar studying Richard Wright’s trip.

Guest: Nancy Zucker, PhD., Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.  Mealtime is all-too-often battletime in homes with children. Most people probably consider it normal for a kid to turn his or her nose up at vegetables on the plate. There is a point, however, when picky eating becomes a sign of deeper, more worrisome problems.

Guest: William Damon, PhD., Professor of Education at Stanford Univeristy and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence  “Millennial” is the generally-accepted term for the current crop of youngsters, but they have also been referred to as “Generation Me” or the “Selfie Generation.” They’re absorbed by their phones and their social media feeds and by themselves. That’s a gross generalization, of course, but those who fit the bill also find themselves lacking a sense of meaning or purpose.