Instagram story viewer> @mikekaichen> Posts
Mike Kai Chen(@mikekaichen)'s profile avatar HD Profile

Mike Kai Chen

@mikekaichen

10.8K
followers
3589
following
@natgeo explorer
📍kyiv, ukraine
POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED
Download All
Long overdue life update! Excited to share I’ve finally transitioned to photography full-time to focus on freelancing after a decade of tech sales at @box and software engineering at @apple. I am based in San Francisco and Taipei. Editors - let’s get this party started! Also excited to join the community of @natgeo Explorers after receiving a storytelling grant from the National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. This year I am exploring the science of dopamine and human impact of technology addiction in today’s ever evolving digital world. Tech friends - I would love to hear your thoughts surrounding user engagement metrics and experience being influenced by our own products. A heartfelt thank you to my friends, family, and colleagues who guided me through this journey. This technology brother would never dare dream this high alone. by @mikekaichen
208
3 years ago
Download
A personal story I pitched and wrote about sailing across the Taiwan strait to cast a vote in Taiwan’s most isolated military island just miles off the coast of China. “The Remote Taiwanese Islands Where It Takes a Village to Keep Democracy Alive” As the world held its breath Friday night, on the eve of Taiwan’s pivotal 2024 elections for president and parliament, a small group boarded an overnight ferry to Taiwan’s most isolated territory. My father and I—along with several cousins, aunties, and uncles—were sailing six hours across the Taiwan strait to the Wuqiu Islands, just miles off of China’s coast. It was here that my father was born, and Taiwanese are required to return and cast their ballot in a person’s registered hometown. The Wuqiu Islands sit not just on China’s doorstep but also at the frontline of what could be the next major global conflict—yet the location remains unknown to most Taiwanese people, let alone the world. Identified as the first target of a Chinese attack during the 1996 missile crisis, the remoteness and perceived irrelevance of Taiwan’s Wuqiu Islands puts the rural community at the very forefront of the tensions between Taiwan and mainland China. Once a fishing village, Chinese military and fishing fleets dominating the Taiwan strait have pushed Wuqiu’s residents to Taiwan to find work, leaving behind a small elderly population of less than 50 people. Wuqiu’s former residents, however, make the long journey back during Chinese New Year and elections to hold onto their homes. Story linked in bio. Photographed & written for @time. Thank you @sangsuk.jpg for the trust and beautiful edit. by @mikekaichen
18
3 years ago
Download
Al is booming, and with it - the demand for quality human-made content and storytelling. Having a good story is just as important as having good technology, young tech entrepreneurs are being told by investors pouring money into their startups. “People want real stories to show real customers, and Al can’t do that.” San Francisco’s young Al companies are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for traditional video production with real human actors, film crews, and real sets to make highly produced hype videos for social media. Daydream, an Al marketing services company, spent $80,000 on an Alice in Wonderland-themed video shoot to announce a $15 million funding round in a social media post. Nen Creative, the agency behind the video, said there’s a lot of demand from startups for human-made content, with their team working one or two video shoots per day, five days a week. For @nytimes. by @mikekaichen
29
20 days ago
Download
This week, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion for intentionally designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children. Meta shares are also up 6% this week. At the Internet Addiction Prevention and Treatment Center for children in Taiwan, parents are required to attend the 30-day digital detox camp alongside their children. The children surrender their smartphones, learn about the impacts of technology overuse, and find ways to regulate their usage. They work on group activities to socialize and build companionship with each other. Next door, parents work through communication scenarios to better understand why their children turn to technology - what they’re receiving online that they’re missing at home and at school such as friendship, approval, companionship, and respect. Together, the children and parents set boundaries and agree on daily usage limits. Many parents also realize their own habits as part of the problem and commit to limits on themselves as well. Digital Dopamine is an exploration of today’s world sleepwalking into disconnection. Our brains, wired for survival, have been rewired for profit - endlessly stimulated by screens, algorithms, and artificial intelligence exploiting dopamine pathways once meant to drive real human needs. Screen-lit portraits, scientific studies, and real human stories visualize the invisible crisis of our lives - how we’ve traded our humanity for an endless, individualized digital pursuit for more. Digital Dopamine is funded by The National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. taken in Taiwan by @mikekaichen
0
a month ago
Download
In today’s world of artificial food, substances, and intelligence, we now take in more artificial light than natural light. Studies show adults in the US spend 90% of their time indoors. Screens and LEDs create the digital world from high frequency pulsing of red, green, and blue wavelengths. Like fluorescent lights in hospitals, labs, and offices, it flickers faster than is visible to the human eye. Blue light, the shortest wavelength and highest energy among visible light, suppresses melatonin, disrupts sleep, and is linked to anxiety and eye strain. Natural light from heat sources - the sun, fire, filament bulbs - provides energy from a full spectrum of wavelengths that gives Vitamin D, regulate circadian rhythm, and boost mood. Portrait lit with projector photographed at high shutter speed. Digital Dopamine is an exploration of today’s world sleepwalking into disconnection. Our brains, wired for survival, have been rewired for profit - endlessly stimulated by screens, algorithms, and artificial intelligence exploiting dopamine pathways once meant to drive real human needs. Through screen-lit portraits, scientific studies, and real human stories, Digital Dopamine visualizes the invisible crisis of our lives - how we’ve traded presence, empathy, and community for an endless, individualized digital pursuit for more. Digital Dopamine is funded by The National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. by @mikekaichen
4
a month ago
Download
Digital Dopamine - Chasing synthetic wants. Forsaking human needs. Sleepwalking into artificial intelligence. Digital Dopamine is about today’s world sleepwalking into disconnection. Our brains, wired for survival, have been rewired for profit - endlessly stimulated by screens, algorithms, and artificial intelligence exploiting dopamine pathways once meant to drive real human needs. Through screen-lit portraits, scientific studies, and human stories, I’ve spent the past few years as a @natgeo Explorer photographing this invisible crisis - how we’ve traded presence, empathy, and community for an endless, individualized digital pursuit for more. At a moment when society feels fractured, distracted, and indifferent to collective wellbeing, I explored the unseen driver behind it all: digital dependency and control. As synthetic dopamine loops reshape human behavior, society grows increasingly disconnected - not only from each other, but from purpose, and from what it means to be human. On the brink of global conflict and a superpower race to control AI, understanding how digital dopamine exploits our most basic motivations has never been more urgent. What if the biggest threat to humanity isn’t war or disease, but the invisible dependency we’re turning to instead of one another? Funded by The National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. Thank you @davidylee and @elizkrist for being there to guide me every step of the way. Also thank you to my friends and family for supporting me through this journey. by @mikekaichen
30
a year ago
Download
Projector portraits from Digital Dopamine: A project lit entirely by the synthetic glow of screens and electronics. Digital Dopamine visualizes the artificial world we now live in - one so perfectly optimized and efficient it anticipates every want and mimics every need. Under its cold light, we are embraced in a world that orbits around us: able to immerse us in any reality, experience anyone and everything imaginable, and skip whatever bores us. In tech sales we joked about being “digital drug dealers”. We’d give you a little free taste to get you hooked and coming back for more. In software engineering, our metrics for success were to optimize user engagement, user retention, and user time spent. Tech is the only industry - besides the illegal drug trade - to call their customers “users”. Our scarcity-wired brains now face a world of overabundance, flooded with unnaturally high instant dopamine from artificial sugar, synthetic drugs, and digital stimulation. We now spend more time interacting with a screen than connecting in person. Studies show teenagers spend over 8 hours on screens today with decreased attention spans and over a quarter of adults globally meeting criteria for technology addiction. ​But what does it even mean to be addicted to technology? To find out, I explored digital detox camps, internet addiction 12-step groups, and medical efforts to define technology addiction. How can we disconnect from today’s ever evolving digital world - or is this simply another step in human evolution? Digital Dopamine is funded by The National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. by @mikekaichen
7
a year ago
Download
Researchers in the 60’s gave rats with brain implants the ability to “self-stimulate” dopamine by pressing a lever. They ignored food, water, and mates, pressing endlessly until near death. Dopamine isn’t happiness or satisfaction - it is motivation for more. A lab rat is stimulated with electrical impulses via a brain implant to trigger dopamine release at Stanford University. Researchers commonly use self-stimulation to study the brain’s reward system, addiction, and motivated behavior. An engineer uses virtual reality in a sensory deprivation tank for a fully immersive VR experience. Digital Dopamine is an exploration of today’s world sleepwalking into disconnection. Our brains, wired for survival, have been rewired for profit - endlessly stimulated by screens, algorithms, and artificial intelligence exploiting dopamine pathways once meant to drive real human needs. Through screen-lit portraits, scientific studies, and real human stories, Digital Dopamine visualizes the invisible crisis of our lives - how we’ve traded presence, empathy, and community for an endless, individualized digital pursuit for more. Funded by The National Geographic Society @natgeosociety. taken in Stanford University by @mikekaichen
11
2 months ago
Download
Not on assignment taken in Bahia, Brasil by @mikekaichen
11
a month ago
Download
Pancho aka "Bravo1" has not been able to speak since 2003. Paralyzed following a car crash at the age of 22, Pancho (38) uses slight head and wrist movements today to live his life as an uncle, web developer, and also the first human to be able to plug into a computer and speak with just his thoughts. Thanks to a groundbreaking medical achievement by UCSF neurosurgeon Dr. Eddie Chang and his research team at UC San Francisco Medical School, Pancho is able to communicate via electrodes implanted in his brain. Read about Pancho’s amazing story by Pulitzer winning staff writer Pam Belluck. Linked on my website. For @nytimes and @ucsf. by @mikekaichen
16
5 years ago
Download
Reverend Dr. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP and pastor of Vice President Kamala Harris, leads Sunday service at Third Baptist Church. Pre-election for @washingtonpost. by @mikekaichen
10
2 years ago
Download
Brain organoids - lab-grown human brains cultivated from stem cells - can feel pain, learn, and help us understand cognitive disorders. Scientists have wired these tiny clusters of neurons to form active neural networks firing electrical impulses to control robots and drones. Startups want to wire them to silicon to power efficient “biocompute” AI models. Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Sergiu Paşca - whose lab connects organoids into tiny networks to study pain and autism - is asking how far we can go, and whether it is ethical. For @nytimes. taken in Stanford University by @mikekaichen
12
2 months ago
Download
×

Download all media on this page

Photos Videos
back to up