Episode 78: Delete Your Account

The Cambridge Analytica story got Jessica to put her Facebook account “on pause,” as she says — or, as Facebook puts it, her “content isn't available right now.” Yet most people keep using Facebook despite this latest violation of privacy, Michael says, because humans are social animals. “Most people don’t want to live like hermits.”

Also mentioned this week:

Google Design, People and AI Research including The UX of AI
Kevin Roose, NYT, Here Come the Fake Videos, Too
Professor Buzzkill, The Hitler Jig
Jon Christian, The Outline, Experts fear face swapping tech could start an international showdown
From Russia With Love, Trump Edition
Jon Bruner, Optimized for Engagement: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Entertainment
Doll Hacking
Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
Highland Park, MI house listing via @manda_like_wine.

Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Soundcloud.

Posted in: The Observatory

Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati, and has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1990. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

Jobs | October 29