In this special event - part conversation, part personal reflection, part musical performance - Jaron Lanier exposes the toxicity of social media that is built into its very design. Lanier, the inventor of Virtual Reality, polymath across technology, art, and music, makes the case that liberating yourself from social media’s hold will transform your life and the world for the better. He carries the audience through the ideas in his book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, in the hopes of delivering us to a new conceptual framework. Argument Number 3: “Social media is turning you into an asshole.”

Lanier implores us to critically consider whether the benefits of social media outweigh its catastrophic detriments to our personal dignity, happiness, and freedom. His message is as optimistic as it is cautionary: even as he implicates the maliciousness that rules current social-media business models, he envisions a humanistic setting for social networking that can direct us toward a richer and fuller way of living and connecting with our world.