Nate Morgan-Locke | Behold: The Battle for Your Mind in the Digital Age

For £2.27 ($3) a month you get:Exclusive access to premium contentAccess to great value on all Jarvah Biltong Products (UK only)All funds go to the Orthodox Church in St Leonard's, Hastings to continue it's transformational workSunny Banana (Sunny Banana + Jarvah Biltong)What happens when the most valuable thing you own isn't your smartphone—but your attention itself? In this eye-opening talk, filmmaker and "reformed mythologist" Nate Morgan-Lock pulls back the curtain on the attention economy that's reshaping how we experience the world. With humor and insight, he reveals how social media platforms have engineered their interfaces to keep us scrolling endlessly, exploiting our psychological "portion bias" and leaving us perpetually unsatisfied.Morgan-Lock takes us on a fascinating journey through recent technological history, noting that today's teenagers have never known a world without smartphones. He traces how the launch of TikTok in 2016 revolutionized content consumption, shifting from landscape to vertical video formats and creating an infinite scroll that ensures we never reach the bottom of our feeds. This isn't accidental—it's by design."Your eyeballs and your eardrums are for sale," Morgan-Lock explains, showing how tech companies profit from keeping our attention captive. While we often focus on problematic content creators, the real issue may be the format itself—a system designed to create anxiety about what we might miss if we disconnect.The talk culminates with a thoughtful exploration of what it means to "behold" something truly meaningful in an age of distraction. Morgan-Lock suggests that what we choose to give our attention to ultimately shapes who we become: "We become what we behold."Whether you're struggling with your own screen time or trying to understand the digital landscape your children are navigating, this talk offers valuable insights into reclaiming our agency in the attention economy. Listen now to discover how to break free from the scroll and redirect your attention to what truly matters.Drop us a lineSupport the show