ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kathryn Bouskill - Anthropologist, social scientist
Kathryn Bouskill's work explores how our health is shaped as much by our biology as it is by our behaviors and cultural contexts.

Why you should listen

Kathryn Bouskill began her research as a teenager at the lab bench before developing an interest in how our health is shaped as much by our biology as it is by our behaviors and social and cultural contexts. Today, she is an anthropologist at the RAND Corporation and associate director of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security, where she applies ethnographic methods to understand the human dimensions of systems analysis and policy research.

For more than a decade, Bouskill has explored the relationship between culture, technology, policy and health. She has performed research in ten countries on five continents and believes that everyone has an important story to tell. Her latest research asks how the acceleration of daily life is shaping our wellbeing, how different cultures make sense of a faster world and what we as a society risk if we do not plan ahead for the promises -- and perils -- of emerging technologies. Her work is publicly available and covers a range of topics, from the future of global health security to data use for decision-making in health care.

A former Fulbright scholar in Austria, Bouskill continues her passion for using cultural diplomacy to build international cooperation. She also teaches doctoral fellows at the Pardee RAND Graduate School how to turn policy problems into empirical research projects and why it is critical to bring people into policy analysis. Bouskill has a BA in anthropology from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in anthropology and an MPH in epidemiology from Emory University.

More profile about the speaker
Kathryn Bouskill | Speaker | TED.com
TEDxManhattanBeach

Kathryn Bouskill: The unforeseen consequences of a fast-paced world

Filmed:
1,317,573 views

Why does modern technology promise efficiency, but leave us constantly feeling pressed for time? Anthropologist Kathryn Bouskill explores the paradoxes of living in a fast-paced society and explains why we need to reconsider the importance of slowing down in a world that demands go, go, go.
- Anthropologist, social scientist
Kathryn Bouskill's work explores how our health is shaped as much by our biology as it is by our behaviors and cultural contexts. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
Do you ever wonder why we're surrounded
with things that help us do everything
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faster and faster and faster?
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Communicate faster,
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but also work faster, bank faster,
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travel faster, find a date faster,
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cook faster, clean faster
and do all of it all at the same time?
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How do you feel about cramming
even more into every waking hour?
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Well, to my generation of Americans,
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speed feels like a birthright.
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Sometimes I think
our minimum speed is Mach 3.
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Anything less, and we fear
losing our competitive edge.
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But even my generation
is starting to question
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whether we're the masters of speed
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or if speed is mastering us.
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I'm an anthropologist
at the Rand Corporation,
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and while many anthropologists
study ancient cultures,
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I focus on modern day cultures
and how we're adapting
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to all of this change
happening in the world.
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Recently, I teamed up with an engineer,
Seifu Chonde, to study speed.
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We were interested both in how people
are adapting to this age of acceleration
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and its security and policy implications.
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What could our world look like in 25 years
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if the current pace of change
keeps accelerating?
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What would it mean for transportation,
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or learning, communication,
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manufacturing, weaponry
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or even natural selection?
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Will a faster future make us
more secure and productive?
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Or will it make us more vulnerable?
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In our research, people accepted
acceleration as inevitable,
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both the thrills and the lack of control.
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They fear that if they were to slow down,
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they might run the risk
of becoming obsolete.
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They say they'd rather
burn out than rust out.
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Yet at the same time,
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they worry that speed could
erode their cultural traditions
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and their sense of home.
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But even people who are winning
at the speed game
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admit to feeling a little uneasy.
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They see acceleration as widening
the gap between the haves,
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the jet-setters who are buzzing around,
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and the have-nots,
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who are left in the digital dust.
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Yes, we have good reason to forecast
that the future will be faster,
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but what I've come to realize
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is that speed is paradoxical,
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and like all good paradoxes,
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it teaches us about the human experience,
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as absurd and complex as it is.
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The first paradox is that we love speed,
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and we're thrilled by its intensity.
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But our prehistoric brains
aren't really built for it,
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so we invent roller coasters
and race cars and supersonic planes,
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but we get whiplash, carsick,
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jet-lagged.
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We didn't evolve to multitask.
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Rather, we evolved to do one thing
with incredible focus,
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like hunt -- not necessarily
with great speed
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but with endurance for great distance.
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But now there's a widening gap
between our biology and our lifestyles,
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a mismatch between what our bodies are
built for and what we're making them do.
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It's a phenomenon my mentors have called
"Stone Agers in the fast lane."
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(Laughter)
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A second paradox of speed is that
it can be measured objectively. Right?
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Miles per hour, gigabytes per second.
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But how speed feels,
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and whether we like it,
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is highly subjective.
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So we can document
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that the pace at which we are adopting
new technologies is increasing.
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For example, it took 85 years
from the introduction of the telephone
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to when the majority of Americans
had phones at home.
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In contrast, it only took 13 years
for most of us to have smartphones.
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And how people act and react to speed
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varies by culture and among
different people within the same culture.
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Interactions that could be seen
as pleasantly brisk and convenient
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in some cultures
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could be seen as horribly rude in others.
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I mean, you wouldn't go asking
for a to-go cup at a Japanese tea ceremony
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so you could jet off
to your next tourist stop.
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Would you?
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A third paradox
is that speed begets speed.
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The faster I respond,
the more responses I get,
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the faster I have to respond again.
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Having more communication
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and information at our fingertips
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at any given moment
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was supposed to make decision-making
easier and more rational.
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But that doesn't really
seem to be happening.
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Here's just one more paradox:
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If all of these faster technologies
were supposed to free us from drudgery,
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why do we all feel so pressed for time?
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Why are we crashing our cars
in record numbers,
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because we think we have
to answer that text right away?
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Shouldn't life in the fast lane
feel a little more fun
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and a little less anxious?
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German speakers even have a word for this:
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"Eilkrankheit."
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In English, that's "hurry sickness."
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When we have to make fast decisions,
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autopilot brain kicks in,
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and we rely on our learned behaviors,
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our reflexes, our cognitive biases,
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to help us perceive and respond quickly.
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Sometimes that saves our lives, right?
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Fight or flight.
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But sometimes, it leads us astray
in the long run.
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Oftentimes, when our society
has major failures,
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they're not technological failures.
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They're failures that happen
when we made decisions too quickly
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on autopilot.
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We didn't do the creative
or critical thinking required
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to connect the dots
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or weed out false information
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or make sense of complexity.
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That kind of thinking can't be done fast.
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That's slow thinking.
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Two psychologists,
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky,
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started pointing this out back in 1974,
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and we're still struggling
to do something with their insights.
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All of modern history can be thought of as
one spurt of acceleration after another.
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It's as if we think
if we just speed up enough,
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we can outrun our problems.
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But we never do.
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We know this in our own lives,
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and policymakers know it, too.
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So now we're turning
to artificial intelligence
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to help us make faster
and smarter decisions
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to process this ever-expanding
universe of data.
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But machines crunching data
are no substitute
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for critical and sustained thinking
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by humans,
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whose Stone Age brains need a little time
to let their impulses subside,
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to slow the mind
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and let the thoughts flow.
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If you're starting to think
that we should just hit the brakes,
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that won't always be the right solution.
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We all know that a train that's going
too fast around a bend can derail,
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but Seifu, the engineer,
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taught me that a train that's going
too slowly around a bend can also derail.
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So managing this spurt of acceleration
starts with the understanding
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that we have more control over speed
than we think we do,
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individually and as a society.
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Sometimes, we'll need to engineer
ourselves to go faster.
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We'll want to solve gridlock,
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speed up disaster relief
for hurricane victims
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or use 3-D printing to produce
what we need on the spot,
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just when we need it.
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Sometimes, though, we'll want
to make our surroundings feel slower
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to engineer the crash
out of the speedy experience.
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And it's OK not to be
stimulated all the time.
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It's good for adults
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and for kids.
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Maybe it's boring,
but it gives us time to reflect.
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Slow time is not wasted time.
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And we need to reconsider
what it means to save time.
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Culture and rituals around the world
build in slowness,
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because slowness helps us reinforce
our shared values and connect.
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And connection is
a critical part of being human.
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We need to master speed,
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and that means thinking carefully about
the trade-offs of any given technology.
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Will it help you reclaim time that you
can use to express your humanity?
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Will it give you hurry sickness?
Will it give other people hurry sickness?
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If you're lucky enough to decide the pace
that you want to travel through life,
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it's a privilege.
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Use it.
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You might decide that you need
both to speed up
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and to create slow time:
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time to reflect,
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to percolate
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at your own pace;
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time to listen,
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to empathize,
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to rest your mind,
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to linger at the dinner table.
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So as we zoom into the future,
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let's consider setting
the technologies of speed,
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the purpose of speed
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and our expectations of speed
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to a more human pace.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kathryn Bouskill - Anthropologist, social scientist
Kathryn Bouskill's work explores how our health is shaped as much by our biology as it is by our behaviors and cultural contexts.

Why you should listen

Kathryn Bouskill began her research as a teenager at the lab bench before developing an interest in how our health is shaped as much by our biology as it is by our behaviors and social and cultural contexts. Today, she is an anthropologist at the RAND Corporation and associate director of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security, where she applies ethnographic methods to understand the human dimensions of systems analysis and policy research.

For more than a decade, Bouskill has explored the relationship between culture, technology, policy and health. She has performed research in ten countries on five continents and believes that everyone has an important story to tell. Her latest research asks how the acceleration of daily life is shaping our wellbeing, how different cultures make sense of a faster world and what we as a society risk if we do not plan ahead for the promises -- and perils -- of emerging technologies. Her work is publicly available and covers a range of topics, from the future of global health security to data use for decision-making in health care.

A former Fulbright scholar in Austria, Bouskill continues her passion for using cultural diplomacy to build international cooperation. She also teaches doctoral fellows at the Pardee RAND Graduate School how to turn policy problems into empirical research projects and why it is critical to bring people into policy analysis. Bouskill has a BA in anthropology from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in anthropology and an MPH in epidemiology from Emory University.

More profile about the speaker
Kathryn Bouskill | Speaker | TED.com