The Digital Human

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world

BBC Radio 4 FM

The Digital Human: Series 11: Silence

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Silence

Series 11

BBC Radio 4 - The Digital Human, Series 11, Silence

In a digital world Aleks explores whether silence is becoming harder to experience.

Aleks Krotoski explores living in a digital world. Why in a digital world can silence make us feel uncomfortable and how can technology actually help us achieve silence?

Aleks goes in search of silence. In our digital world has silence become harder to find, or are we looking for it in all the wrong places?

 Leif Haugen is a Fire watcher who spends six months of a year stationed at Toma lookout, on a mountain in Montana. He says only fire watchers who are at peace with themselves are able to stick it out. Living in silence makes you look inwards at who you really are.  Silence is the absence of something but the presence of everything.

 Isobel Anderson suffers from tinnitus and at its peak felt like she was being tortured or stalked.  The culprit wasn't an external sound that she could switch off; it was inside her brain. Her mind tuned into the inner electrical currents and motions that we all experience but hers never fade away. She knows there’s no such thing as silence but what she misses is being able to control her sound environment.

Jessica Vitak is a writer who lives in London and uses technology to control her sound environment. She wears noise cancelling headphones to drown out the distractions of the city but she admits it does make her shut down a little.

Dr Helen Lees is an Associate Research fellow at York St John University and she argues that being distracted by our screens means we miss out on the silent experience between people, the language of silence spoken.

Produced by Kate Bissell.

The Digital Human: Series 11

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Aleks Krotoski explores life in the digital age.

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Silence

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