Instagram story viewer> @caityb> Posts

Caitlin Begg

@caityb

23.5K

followers

2900

following

sociologist researching tech’s effect on life, love, & work
founder @authenticsocial
@hypercommunication
💌 [email protected] // NYC

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

@hypercommunication_ episode on this soon!

#relationships #communication #philosophy #sociology #books by @caityb

8k

84

3 months ago

@caityb opened @brainbarhu, Europe’s largest festival on the future, on 26 September 2024 in Budapest. The keynote focused on designing a sociotechnical future, through debunking popular myths about technology (paper tigers).

“GOING BACK TO NORMAL? Why the analog way is a progression, rather than a regression?”.

@sidmoorthy was a wonderful host!

Some of the myths busted during the session:
MYTH: Digital life is a constant progression that always leads to improvement.
MYTH: Notification culture doesn’t affect me—I can handle constant multitasking.
MYTH: A digital detox is the quick fix for screen overload.
MYTH: At work, it’s ALWAYS more efficient to ‘ping’ someone rather than pick up the phone.
MYTH: Being online constantly keeps me more informed and connected.

Thank you @mircsisipos, @kirakaragits, & the entire Brain Bar team for such an incredible conference!

We are designing a sociotechnical future. caitlinbegg.com

@progressiontoanalog taken in Budapest, Hungary by @caityb

3

6

2 years ago

On 5 September 2022, I began my morning reading “Society of the Spectacle” by Guy Debord before going on my phone. I had heard of the book through @trumanblack, and it had taken me a few months to get through the first 50%. On a rainy morning in Maine, my phone was dead, I couldn’t find the charger, and the book was right next to my bed. I read the final 50% of the book in just a couple of hours, and my brain felt different.

Since that morning, without exception, I’ve begun every morning reading nonfiction before any phone or computer use. This practice over the last three years has changed my life.

Besides reducing my screen time by ~65%, it led to me developing “Four Principles of Sociotechnical Design”, presenting research and delivering keynotes across the U.S. and Europe (Sweden, Netherlands, U.K., Germany, Finland, Hungary so far!), and more.

Season 4 of @progressiontoanalog launches Monday 3 November, featuring @andrewyang!

@authenticsocial, the applied research lab which I founded as a senior @harvard_sociology, is still growing and still my passion eight years later. Authentic Social focuses on designing a sociotechnical future. We apply our research in practical settings to help solve complex organizational and societal issues… including workplace design, a sociotechnical approach to artificial intelligence, and more.

“In the realm of Power, mediation is the false necessity wherein people learn to lose themselves rationally. Mediation’s power to alienate is now being reinforced, and also brought into question, by the dictatorship of consumption, by the predominance of exchange over gift, by cybernetisation, and by the reign of the quantitative.”
-Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life (1967) by @caityb

3

11

a year ago

@piet_hein_eek @dutchdesignweek

From the DDW site:
92% of people check their phone upon waking; only 5% sleep with their phone outside the bedroom. In this evening session, Caitlin Begg expands on her Editor’s Pick TEDxPrincetonU talk with new original research and screenshots (a DDW-only twist).

In Defense of Drifting
With real data around accelerated communication’s influence on everyday life, love, and work, attendees can learn more about hypercommunication and how to work both WITH and AGAINST it (depending on the circumstance). Caitlin will help you understand how drift and sociotechnical design can work to counter our society’s tech-heavy incentives. Often the solutions for hypercommunication and excessive screen time involve dumbphones or going off the grid, both perhaps preferable but very impractical. Only 35% of people in her recent study said they could easily go 24 hours without a smartphone, so why are conversations catered to this? Leave with a new perspective.

The Session
Join us for a Friday evening session at Piet Hein Eek—Caitlin Begg will be presenting for the first 45 minutes, followed by Q&A and mingling. Participants will also have the ability to contribute to ongoing research if they choose. Caitlin has experience advising many organizations on sociotechnical design strategy. Based in New York, she researches tech’s effect on everyday life, love, and work... this combination makes for a unique, valuable, and also entertaining session.

#dutchdesignweek #ddw26 #eindhovencity #eindhoven #pietheineek taken in London, United Kingdom by @caityb

3

23

13 hours ago

@hypercommunication_ substack post about this is live called “Situationships, Snapchat, Cultural Neoteny, and Performed Intimacy! 🔗 in bio

Also - these charts re: common path to a relationship in 1960 vs. 2016 (which I believe to be very similar in 2026) are from my Harvard undergraduate sociology thesis - can be accessed at virtualimpressions.org. 1960s chart is attributed to Ansari and Klinenberg 2015

#dating #relationships #situationship #sociology #greenscreensticker by @caityb

4k

125

2 months ago

This video is in partnership with @waytowinus to educate voters ahead of the midterms @stopbeingcorrupt
#ai #datacenters #midterms by @caityb

255

41

3 days ago

hypercommunication.com

The rise of “preventative terror”: AI doomerism, 9/11, and nuclear annihilation

Baudrillard’s “non-event” and preventative terror’s impact on everyday life by @caityb

269

15

9 days ago

@hypercommunication_

The rise of “preventative terror”: AI doomerism, 9/11, and nuclear annihilation

Baudrillard’s “non-event” and preventative terror’s impact on everyday life by @caityb

283

10

9 days ago

@caityb and @jessrauchberg chat re: “Who gets to be seen online?”

—

We discuss “ugly laws”, shadow bans, influencer snark (especially r/illnessfakers), influencers using sick kids for clout, child agency, state hopping by family content creators, the history of influencers, consumption and identity formation, “infotainment”, “Can we have an intellectual conversation on a platform that’s designed to mine our attention?”, “lolcows”, autism and TikTok, and more.

Dr. Jess Rauchberg is an award-winning creator culture expert and Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. by @caityb

248

8

10 days ago

@hypercommunication_ #technology #surveillance #philosophy #sociology #books by @caityb

3k

52

3 months ago

@progressiontoanalog episode “The Death of Anticipation, Precipitated by Technology” is a good companion to this video!
#communication #smartphone #socialmedia #burnout #work by @caityb

6k

65

6 months ago

@hypercommunication_

5 books you probably don’t have in your library (but should)! From a sociologist researching tech’s effect on everyday life, love, and work.

These books are all nonfiction, spanning from Anti-Computing to ‘Pataphysics to Al and Singularity Hypotheses to a Swedish book about everyday objects to the Revolution of Everyday Life (1st edition)!

#nonfictionreads #criticaltheory #techphilosophy #booktok #nonfictionbooks by @caityb

4k

74

a month ago