Learn about potential drawbacks to life hacking from Professor Joseph M. Reagle Jr., author of the new book “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents.” You’ll also learn why your fingers get pruney when they’re soaked in water. Get your copy of “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents” on Amazon: https://amazon.com In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about why your fingers get pruney when you take a bath: https://curiosity.im/2YApK91 Publications and additional resources from Joseph M. Reagle, Jr: “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents” — https://amazon.com “Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web” — https://amazon.com “Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia” — https://amazon.com Official website — https://reagle.org/joseph/ Follow @jmreagle on Twitter — https://twitter.com/jmreagle MIT Press — https://mitpress.mit.edu/contributors/joseph-m-reagle-jr If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about potential drawbacks to life hacking from Professor Joseph M. Reagle Jr., author of the new book “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents.” You’ll also learn why your fingers get pruney when they’re soaked in water.
Get your copy of “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents” on Amazon: https://amazon.com
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about why your fingers get pruney when you take a bath: https://curiosity.im/2YApK91
Publications and additional resources from Joseph M. Reagle, Jr:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/drawbacks-and-dangers-of-life-hacking-w-joseph-m-reagle-jr-and-why-wet-fingers-prune
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the dangers and drawbacks of life hacking with Professor Joseph Reagle. You’ll also learn about the evolutionary reason why your fingers get pruney when they’re wet.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Joseph Reagle Clip 3 - What are the dangers or drawbacks of life hacking? (4:06) 5/30 (Cody)
CODY: Life hacks aren’t all fun and games, as you’ll learn in this edition of our “Hacking Thursdays” mini-series. We’re joined by Joseph Reagle, an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern University and author of the new book “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents.” Here’s what he told us when I asked him: what are the biggest drawbacks to life hacking? What does optimization come at the cost OF?
[CLIP 4:06]
CODY: The key takeaway: remember to make life hacks work for you, and remember that you can’t always quantify the solutions to your problems. Again, that was Joseph Reagle, an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern University and author of the book “Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents.” You can find a link to the book and more in today’s show notes, and next week, we’ll wrap up our “Hacking Thursdays” mini-series with a discussion on what happens after your life has been fully optimized.
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This Is the Real Reason Your Fingers Get Pruney in the Bath — https://curiosity.im/2YApK91 (Ashley)
There may be an evolutionary reason why your fingers prune when they’re wet. You know what I’m talking about: you’re taking bubble bath, minding your own business, when suddenly you notice that it looks like your fingers are aging at a rapid pace. Of course, they're not actually aging. They’re pruning. And scientists have known for a while HOW this happens (on a physiological level), but they’ve never offered an explanation for WHY it happens — until recently. Way back in the 1930s, scientists discovered that fingers with nerve damage do not wrinkle in water. That implied that the wrinkling was an involuntary reaction by the body’s autonomic nervous system. But, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that researchers finally uncovered the mystery of why this happens. A research study from 2013 set out to prove the theory put forward by evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi and his colleagues, who suspected that the wrinkles were optimized for providing a drainage network that improved grip. The researchers had half of their study participants soak their fingers in water, then had all of them try to pick up both wet and dry marbles. They found that pruney fingers were better at picking up wet objects, and no worse at picking up dry ones.
Changizi explained to Nature News that pruney fingers are rain treads. Our ancestors likely needed help catching food in wet conditions, and their wrinkly toes helped with footing. But one thing is still puzzling researchers: If wrinkling improves our grip in wet conditions and makes no difference in dry conditions, then why don't our fingers stay permanently pruney? The current hypothesis is that wrinkling could make our fingertips less sensitive, which would make it easier for us to hurt ourselves. So the next time you’re enjoying a nice bubble bath or soaking in a hot tub and you reach for a delicious beverage, you’ve got evolution to thank for the fact that the glass doesn’t slip from your fingers.
CODY: Read about today’s stories and more on curiosity-dot-com!
ASHLEY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!