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Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering the intersection of politics and entertainment. She is the author of a new book: Screen People, How We Entertained Ourselves Into a State of Emergency. Screens, Garber, writes, have made turned many Americans into passive consumers of politics, while functioning democracies require active participation. While there was some optimism in the early 2010s about how technology could be harnessed for political change, this enthusiasm has given way to cynicism with the rise of doomscrolling. This pessimism accelerated with the political rise of Donald Trump, who first became known to many Americans as the star of the NBC reality-television show, “The Apprentice,” and has only gotten more acute as more and more parts of modern life have become mediated by screens. However, Garber thinks that screens are here to stay, and that they can bring about political engagement.
Garber and I spoke earlier this week. (The irony that our conversation was done through screens is not lost on me :) ) You can watch the video above or download it as a podcast.
