The Analog Hour

The Analog Hour

by Michelle Henery
Society & Culture
Season 2
Digital Dementia: When AI Becomes the Only Voice in the Room
Dean Cooper is an IT executive who uses conversational AI in both his professional and personal life every day. As someone who is neurodivergent, he calls it a lifeline. In this conversation, Dean introduces the concept digital dementia: the idea that we're outsourcing so much of our thinking to AI that we're forgetting how to do the things we once knew. He asks whether we're using AI as a bridge to bring us closer to others, or if we are burning it down because the other side feels too hard. Moreover, he draws parallels between his own fight with addiction and how many of us are using AI without realizing our dependency on it. About the guest: Dean Cooper is a technology executive, author, and founder of Street Therapy and Disability Assistive AI. He advocates for neurodiversity, disability accessibility, and addiction recovery. DisabilityAssistiveAi.com | StreetTherapy.co.uk | icarus.works Your analog assignment: Are you someone who uses AI more than you care to admit? Challenge yourself to reach out, and build, or in some cases repair, that bridge.
S2 · E4
Sep 25, 2026
19:47
The Toothpaste Test: Why Real Connection Starts With the Small Stuff
In this week's episode, we talk to Lorii Abela, a luxury private matchmaker. Her clients have excelled in almost every aspect of their lives (careers, companies, wealth) and they hire her to help with the one thing that still eludes them: love. She shares what she's seen change over 14 years of matchmaking: how dating has shifted from real conversation to texting and swiping, how the illusion of endless options is making connection harder rather than easier, and what she discovers underneath the surface when someone says they just can't find the right person. About the guest: Lorii Abela specializes in helping high-achieving individuals navigate the gap between professional success and personal fulfilment. Find out more: loriiabela.com Your analog assignment: Seek out a real conversation with a friend this week and if they offer to introduce you to someone, say yes. You never know what's right in front of your nose.
S2 · E3
Sep 18, 2026
12:02
The Problem With Work: We Designed the Loneliness In
This week, our conversation goes somewhere we haven't been yet: the office. It can be a lonely place for many of us. One that we tend to blame on difficult bosses, disengaged co-workers, and a general lack of interpersonal skills, but what if it was in fact, a design problem? Alexandra Suchman, a self-described professional play-facilitator, has an idea of how to repair what's broken. She brings games into workplaces — and not the trust falls many of us are familiar with, her games offer something far more interesting. In this episode, we discuss: How technology has rewired our communication skills; and what "crickets in the meeting" really means Play as a serious tool for rebuilding trust, communication, and belonging Why one friend at work can change everything Plus a game anyone can play to reveal a team's weak points (and how to rebuild lost trust) About the guest: Alexandra Suchman is an entrepreneur and facilitator specializing in organizational development, creative problem-solving, and team dynamics. She is the founder of Barometer XP, where she uses play-based experiential learning to help teams rebuild trust, communication, and collaborative skills. Connect with Alex on LinkedIn Try it yourself: Avocado Al Dente — a free game from Alex's team to practice creative thinking and communicating feedback: avocado.barometerxp.com Your analog assignment: Have a conversation with a colleague that has nothing to do with work. Ask them about their life outside of the office, what they did before and how they got there. You might be surprised by what you learn... and you might just become that one friend they needed.
S2 · E2
Sep 11, 2026
26:36
The Death of Our Social Fabric, One Google at a Time
Welcome to Season 2 of The Analog Hour. This week, we sit down with Julia Freeland Fisher to discuss AI and loneliness. She has spent over a decade at the Clayton Christensen Institute studying how relationships shape opportunity. Yet, lately her research has explored what happens when AI starts filling the role that humans used to. In this conversation, Julia draws a distinction between engagement and connection; explains why the outer ring of our networks (what she calls the "weak ties") may be more at risk from AI than our closest relationships; and reveals a devastating finding about why young people are turning to AI for companionship. About the guest: Julia Freeland Fisher is the Director of Education Research at the Clayton Christensen Institute and author of Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations That Expand Students' Networks (Wiley, 2018). She writes Connection Error, a weekly Substack on how AI companions and productivity tools are reshaping our relationships. Your analog assignment: Think of the person you've been wanting to reach out to — the one you haven't called because you don't want to bother them. Call them. You're not a burden. You never were.
S2 · E1
Sep 4, 2026
24:34
Season 1
The Lost Art of Serendipity
Do you know your neighbors? Kanika Mehra is the Gen Z. creator behind Airplane Mode - an Aspen Institute project bringing young people back to third spaces and offline connection. She came up with the idea after thinking about why gathering has become so hard, particularly for her generation. Her answer might surprise you: she believes that the paradigm for gathering has simply disappeared. In this conversation, we talk about serendipity - the unexpected, magical connections that only happen when you're open to the world around you - and what we're losing as technology decides, in advance, who we are and what we'll find. This Week's Analog Assignment: Leave the house with nothing but (as my mother used to say) your two long arms. Take a walk. Let the world in. See what or who finds you. Connect with Kanika: Follow Kanika's work at the Aspen Institute's Center for Rising Generations and keep an eye out for Missed Connections - coming soon. Subscribe to The Analog Hour wherever you listen. analoginadigitalworld.net | @analoginadigitalworld (IG)
S1 · E16
Jun 19, 2026
23:48
Vitamin Friendship: Why Social Health Is the Missing Piece
Here's something nobody tells you about making friends as an adult: it's not that you've forgotten how. It's that nobody told you where to go. Maggie Arai spent years answering that question. As founder of happier - a Toronto community that hosted 60+ events and grew to 10,000+ members in 18 months, and Founders Who Give a F*ck, a membership community for ambitious women founders - she's learned firsthand about what people actually need when they walk into a room full of strangers. In this conversation, we talk about the difference between a network and a community, why consistency matters most when forming relationships, and a phrase that should be trending: social health. This Week's Analog Assignment: Let one small interaction be enough this week. Chat with a neighbor. Skip the self-checkout and say hello to the human cashier. You don't need it to become a friendship. You just need it to happen. Connect with Maggie: Founders Who Give a F*ck: fwgaf.com Subscribe wherever you listen. analoginadigitalworld.net | @analoginadigitalworld (IG)
S1 · E15
Jun 5, 2026
19:32
The Courage Crisis: Why Making Friends as an Adult Is So Hard
Was it always this hard to make friends? In school, connection felt effortless. Then we graduated - and suddenly it wasn't as straightforward as it used to be. Adele Bloch says our increasing sense of isolation can't simply be labeled as a loneliness crisis. Instead she calls it: a courage crisis. Adele is a community builder, coach, and founder of Dining with Strangers and The Board Walks SF - a weekly Saturday morning walk series she hosted for over 100 consecutive weeks in San Francisco, bringing strangers together for deep, meaningful conversation. After years of hosting 300+ events and coaching people through social and relationship blocks, Adele has developed a practical, warm framework for rebuilding connection as an adult - starting with one simple question: what type of connection are you actually missing? In this conversation: "Ambient social connection" - what it is and why we've lost it Why we're in a courage crisis, not just a loneliness crisis The phone as social crutch - and how to get through "five seconds of courage" The four friendship buckets: do stuff friends, comfort friends, deep talk friends, ambient connection Connection as a muscle: it's not something you have or don't have This Week's Analog Assignment: Think about Adele's four friendship buckets. Which one are you missing most? This week, take one step toward filling it. Go to one event. Text someone you've been meaning to see. Say hello to your barista/neighbor/the person you lock eyes with on the subway and actually mean it. Just one rep. Connect with Adele: Website: adelebloch.com Instagram: @adeleblochjourney Twitter/X: @adele_bloch The Board Walks: theboardwalks.com
S1 · E14
May 22, 2026
27:34
$15 Trillion vs. You: the Fight to Reclaim our Humanity
How many times have you promised yourself you'd put your phone down more - only to find yourself doom-scrolling at midnight again? Peter Schmidt wants you to know it's not a personal failing, that our ever increasing levels of distraction is by design. He is co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit dedicated to "attention activism" - pushing back against the exploitation of human attention by coercive digital technologies. The attention economy is now a $15 trillion industry with one goal: capturing, quantifying, and commodifying your attention. Every time you pick up your phone, you're facing the most sophisticated predictive technology ever built, designed by some of the smartest people in the world, with one purpose: keeping your eyes on that screen. In this conversation: Why phone addiction is NOT a personal failing - it's a $15 trillion power asymmetry Why social media isn't a town square - "it's a shopping mall where the staff are quietly mugging you" Why attention isn't just your attention span, it's your ability to love The one thing you can do this week to start reclaiming your attention This Week's Analog Assignment: Get together with your people. In person. Put your phone away. Every time we connect independently of these platforms, we carve out a space that big tech can't touch. Connect with Peter & the School: Strother School of Radical Attention Seminars & enrollment: schoolofattention.org/enroll The Empty Cup (School of the Attention's Substack) Friends of Attention book: Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement (Crown, 2026) Peter's website: petercschmidt.com
S1 · E13
May 15, 2026
25:51
The Arby's Test: Why America Feels Divided But Isn't (Quite)
If you want to figure out someone votes Republican or Democrat, one of the best questions you can ask is: Do you eat at Arby's? Many of us feel as if America is fracturing - liberals and conservatives living in completely different worlds. But economist Emir Kamenica's research reveals something counterintuitive: we're not actually drifting apart culturally. We may feel divided and often, we are - but not in the ways we think. This episode covers: Why Arby's predicts voting Baby names: Kurt vs. Liam Grey Poupon, iPhones, and consumer markers of identity Income inequality is up, but cultural distance between rich and poor is stable Can we rebuild? Reasons for hope About Professor Emir Kamenica: Emir Kamenica is the Douglas G. Baird Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research with Marianne Bertrand on cultural distance and political polarization uses decades of consumer behavior data to measure how American culture has - and hasn't - fractured along political lines. Find us: analoginadigitalworld.net | @analoginadigitalworld (IG)
S1 · E12
May 8, 2026
19:52
What Our Phones Stop Us From Doing
A parent trying imperfectly to look at his kids instead of his screen. Instagram eating into reading time. Everything seeming urgent when it's not. The simple act of listening to the world go by. This week, no expert interview - just real people answering four honest questions about their phones: When did you get your first smartphone? What daily phone habit would have shocked you 10 years ago? Ever tried unplugging? What does your phone stop you from doing? The average American checks their phone 205 times a day. Over 43% of us admit we're addicted. In these confessions, you'll hear what we're missing: presence, books, conversation, silence, the sounds of life. This Week's Analog Assignment: Push aside all that your phone offers and identify what it's taking away. Take it back. The Analog Hour: analoginadigitalworld.net
S1 · E11
May 1, 2026
10:16
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