St. Lucia, Fake Reviews, Spooky Christmas

Sweden’s Child of Light (0:36) Guest: Christopher Oscarson, Professor of Scandinavian History and Swedish Literature at Brigham Young University December 13th is Saint Lucia Day which is especially big in Sweden. And it’s a little ironic because this song about Saint Lucia and the saint herself both come from warm, sunny Sicily. Now, it’s biggest devotees are in the dark, cold north. How did that happen? (Originally aired 12/13/18).  Don’t Get Suckered By Bogus Reviews When Shopping Online (10:11) Guest: Tommy Noonan, Founder of ReviewMeta In the rush to get last-minute gifts on Amazon, it’s easy to get duped by a fake or poor-quality product. By the time it arrives, it’ll be too late to find a replacement before Christmas. So maybe you just stick to products with loads of five-star reviews? Well watch out for that. Lots of them are bogus and some sellers actually pay people to write good reviews. (Originally aired 11/11/19).  The Value & Price of our Attention (27:36) Guest: Nick Seaver, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University We’ll be spending time with friends and family over the next few weeks. And we bet you’ll notice occasionally how often everyone is on their phones. We check them something like 100 times a day on average –even when we don’t really need or want to be on them. It’s frustrating, but phone and app makers have specifically designed their products to compel us to check as often as possible. The more time we spend on them, the more money they make. So why, then, are these same companies now offering features to help us limit the amount of time we while away on our phones? (Originally aired 9/19/19).  Have a Merry Spooky Christmas (51:08) Guest: Leslee Thorne-Murphy, PhD, Professor and Associate Dean, English Department, BYU Does Andy Williams really sing “There’ll be scary ghost stories” in one of our most beloved Christmas songs?  Yep!  But those spooky tales have no place next to jolly Santa and the babe in the manger, do they? Well, not in America and not today