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Radiolab / January 16, 2004

Radiolab

Friday, January 16, 2004
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    This week we take a look at the different ways that people connect to each other and how they act once they’re together.



Will Meetup Rebuild America?

hoto: John Pettitt, DeanForAmerica.com There is a national crisis happening right now in America. It’s not the economy, or the war, or mad cow disease. It’s picnics. According to Harvard professor Robert Putnam, America is facing a national picnic crisis. Putnam says that in 1975 the average American went on five picnics. Today, the average American only goes on two. He also says that social isolation may be as big of a risk fac tor for death as smoking—it may even be bigger.

Can websites like Meetup.com help solve this problem? Can they get Howard Dean elected president?

Links:
Visit the Meetup.com website
The Official Howard Dean For America website
More on Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone
Robert Putnam’s faculty page at Harvard University

Out of the Chatroom and Into the Bedroom: Sex and the Internet

Two indications that sex on the internet is here to stay:

1. The word "cybersex" has been added to the dictionary.
2. There’s a website called "Furniture Porn," where beach chairs and ottomans are posed in suggestive and, perhaps to some people, arousing positions.

Stories of love and sex in a connected age.

Producers: Ann Hepperman and Kara Oehler
Originally produced for WBEZ Chicago’s series "Speaking of Sex"

The Woo Effect

According to warm up comedian Brian McAnn, if you mention the name Fabio to an audience of two-hundred people, several people in the crowd will respond my shouting, “Woo!” But, if you mention Fabio in a one on one conversation, the person you’re talking to never goes, “Woo!”

We try to find out why people behave the way they do in crowds.

Links:
Visit the Smartmobs.com, a website and blog about topics and issues discussed in the book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold . (Smart Mob audio provided by Finnegan Kelly of thegogame.com)
More on Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power on Amazon.com
More on Stephen J. Simpson, Professor of the Hope Entomological Collections at Oxford University
Read the Networks, Netwars and the Fight for the Future article by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla
Read the Swarming & the Future of Conflict article by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla