you move from a smartphone back to an
old phone is that that does absolutely
nothing at all and and the second thing
you notice is that you’re actually
holding it much close to your eyes than
you were in 2007 which was the very last
moment you didn’t have a phone that was
a smartphone and then your wife goes
should I get one those little pouches
you can go on your belly like granddad
and I’m like no thanks thanks a lot no I
don’t want that um but I used to
sometimes get up my first smart thing
last year and it would just make me
dizzy like whoa goodness how much we’ve
all changed since 2007 the momentum is
just dizzying but I think there’s
another reason why I went back from a
smartphone to a phone like this and
that’s because of something that
happened in 2010 it was the sixth of
December 2010 and I was in a business
meeting a fairly high powered business
meeting and bang wow the world some he
feels like the back of a spoon and I’m
feeling terror like I just didn’t even
know was possible I left the meeting and
then kind of just struggled through the
rest of the day and I was like oh it’s
going to get better when I get home it’s
going to be fine it’s gonna be
absolutely fine when I get home and I
get home and it it’s just not fine it’s
just wow I didn’t realize at the time
but I’d kind of changed forever and
things started going really badly at
work I remember I remember at lunch on
my just just leave my desk as soon as I
could I would run to the British Museum
which wasn’t very far away and I had a
sketch pad and a pencil and I would just
draw I would just find something to draw
and I’m rubbish at drawing but it was
suddenly the most important thing I
could possibly do in the world and i
started with these million-year-old axes
that were actually used for
million years before somebody thought
about something better before another
technology came along and then I did
carved tusks and then I did kind of ours
is I just basically had to do something
to calm myself down and something to
civilize the kind of the broken bits in
my head when I got home and I would have
panic attacks in the middle of the night
I would reach for my phone my smartphone
and I would click on link after link and
basically trying to find a story of like
trying to orientate myself what is going
on and one of the clicks one of the
things I clicked on was was an interview
with this guy his name is PC David wrath
band and on the fourth of July 2010 he
was around at a roundabout in denton on
the outskirts of newcastle when there
was a little tap on the window and the
top of the window came from a shotgun
and the shotgun was being held by a man
called rao thomas moat ral thomas moat
had left prison two days previously and
was utterly convinced that his
girlfriend was now seeing a policeman
and so consequently he was hunting
policeman he shot twice and the force of
the blood pushed pc david rappin into
the footwell of his car and while he was
there he was convinced that he was dead
you know and he’s kind of gasping for
breath like a newborn lamb and then
suddenly in his mind’s eye he sees a
picture of his own son and he reaches
out and in that moment he gains the
strength to press the emergency button
in her police car and so it lets the
control room know exactly where he is
and he survives however most people
don’t remember his name and they don’t
remember ral motes name there is the
name of one guy who they remember above
all somebody that turned up at the siege
of rothbury completely unexpected I’m
just going to play you a little clip
from the place so you can actually hear
what happened
no home no more no I on Union years ago
you should be a bouncer in Newcastle I
you I a new milania’s since I was a
young kid well what up what up late for
Newcastle he was a gentleman gaza gaza
the probably the best football over the
90s gaza the man in recovery gaza the
national treasurer turned up holding
some bread and some chicken and had a
robe and some beer and a fishing rod and
he wanted to join and get through the
police gone to speak to ral moat who had
a gun pointed at his own neck obviously
they didn’t let him get through and
that’s become a kind of infamous
cultural moment however when i clicked
on the link of david raspuns i didn’t i
didn’t know anything about that um
Justin Sutcliffe who took this picture
said the most amazing thing he took it
was taking about a year after he was
shot said the most amazing thing about
it was that he’d only had his eyes for
about three days they’re made of plastic
acrylic medical grade and he was just
getting used to them and they’re like
baby eyes and those eyes that are
brand-new are in a face that is kind of
just been on such a journey and you can
still see some of the pellets coming out
in the forehead and apparent each one of
them felt like a bee sting on a daily
basis what I heard on heard in the
middle of the night was actually an
interview on the radio I’m struggling to
deal with being blind I can deal with
being shot it happened oh I can’t change
that yeah I’m struggling it was a voice
that was just so honest and open by the
time I get involved the story he’s
already bit of a national celebrity he
has started a charity called the Blue
Lamp foundation to help people that have
always been also been in the same
position as him he’s become internet
famous he has a number of thousands of
followers on Twitter and Facebook in my
life at
at time I found a psychotherapist I
tried cbt didn’t even touch the sides of
what I was experiencing but i found an
attachment based psychotherapist and I
would go twice a week and kept saying
it’s alright we’re building a boat at
sea building a boat see how do you build
a boat at sea and he goes no we’re
building a boat at sea and after a long
time I actually believed that we were
building a boat at sea and I realized
that the actual stuff with which you
build a boat at sea is the honesty that
I heard in that voice so with my wife
and my son we kind of moved forward then
about six months later I heard this on
Twitter at David Roth band 3016 tweets
319 following 11,000 and 42 followers
sad to announce mrs. R has called time
and our marriage separation permanent at
catherine band 2754 tweets 605 following
1228 followers was light in accuracy in
the tweet by at pc david roth band he
left us and refuses to come home hashtag
the truth will out who it was like
watching two neighbors have a round you
don’t know her to poke yourself you know
he was leaving his wife but on Twitter
but I suppose that’s what celebrities do
celebrities in a way taught us how to
use social media they make
pronouncements they leave each other on
Twitter but there is David doing the
same thing making the same mistakes that
we’re all making because social media
was so very new in my life I started
getting a little bit better I started
becoming a little bit more curious i got
my sense of humor back a bit and my
curiosity back and i started becoming
really interested in the stories that we
tell about ourselves and we tell other
people online on websites the stories we
tell in video games in social media
and I decided that I wanted to write
about our digital lives but I wasn’t
ready to do it by myself I thought God I
still need to be surrounded by people I
need to collaborate and so I chose to
wrote for the stage see the stage to me
seemed like a very ancient technology in
a bit same way that we kind of
outsourced our questions to Google these
days the theater is where we outsource
our very questions about what it is to
be a line and what it is to live and it
and writers give you the vocabulary with
which to discuss the times in which we
live so I wrote for the stage then on
the twenty-ninth of februari 2012 it was
announced through every tabloid in the
land the pc david roth fan had taken his
own life oh wow you know my recovery in
his recovery we kind of late he was
linked to a lot of people a lot of men
you go through life live shots at that
moment in time wow I decided to write a
play about PC David Roth man but was
quite selfish really I decided to write
play because that if he could die then I
could die and I didn’t want to do what
he did so Ben if i could write a play
about it maybe i could protect myself in
some kind of work and so I started with
what the closest thing I had a hand
which were the tweets which were the
conversations between him and
celebrities and public and private
things that should never be there you
know but is still there online few just
to care to search for them and I put
mall in this kind of metaphorical
hammerin I felt completely like one of
those you know crash investigators what
happened here and the more I looked the
more I saw that it wasn’t just
middle-aged men in crisis it was using
me it was all of us all of us leave a
kind of digital vapor trail behind us
for David they lead to a black box this
plate was a black box flight recorder
and that’s what I was putting together
do you know how long one of your stories
will last in a social media timeline
some digging in she’ll just say how long
do you think before it’s gone nobody
clicks on it anymore 32 seconds it is a
little bit longer than that
average is 18 minutes before a story a
fragment has gone as fast that’s gone on
facebook if it lights what you shared it
can try and expand that a little bit
because from facelets point of view
what’s important about your story is
that it’s likeable and entertaining and
fun because they want everybody to a lot
of Facebook as much as physically
possible because that way they can make
money so your stories are curated not in
the way that you think you might only
share it to about four or five percent
of your followers when you think it’s
going to everybody but it’s not it’s
going on timelines to try and create the
most incredible entertaining experience
twitter is much more like a waterfall it
just kind of goes for 18 minutes wow
that’s fast that’s momentum and I think
the momentum is so fast that it’s
actually exposing kind of divides within
our society divides between those people
that like sharing the things that they
do online and those are think why earth
would anybody be interested in what I
share online those people that think of
privacy as a kind of wealth and of
connectivity as a kind of poverty I
think that momentum I think that there’s
been kind of contraption of psychic
space so it whereas before you know
there was six degrees of separation the
theory the 90s we’re all related to each
other there so just everybody knows each
other I six steps away but now we’ve got
a six centimeters of separation six
centimeters is the size of your screen
of your phone six centimeters is what
separates the world’s news feed on the
one hand and that your friends feed on
the up I think the momentum momentum is
such that people come online not to
share their lunch but they come online
to share their feelings to regulate
their emotions are you thinking is I’m
feeling this you feeling it you know
what do you do when people who are
generally sending pics
units putting out pictures of their
children’s birthday party then study
stuff early on pictures of small
children washed up on beaches that’s I
think is what I found so dizzy why I had
to change from being on a smartphone I
started pruning my social media
connections last year you know I I
started voting off what I didn’t like
you know it’s like that hypothesis oh my
god I’m just saying please go away and
voting you on live in Europe wants to
vote you know block but remain friends
that’s what we do in the olden days we
used to change channel if something was
saying something we didn’t like but now
block but remain friends I think that
the one of the reasons we feel anxious
is because we’re not quite sure what to
do with the information that’s being
shared with us what is our
responsibility to the information that
is the way something sing in our
timelines now what happens when you
click on it because one of the things
about if you live in a world of six
centimeters of separation then you know
a problem shared isn’t a problem haft
it’s a problem multiplied what is our
responsibility to what we see online
toss that just for a moment and it’s not
very TEDx forgive but just think what is
the worst thing that you have ever seen
online for me I saw people jumping from
the Twin Towers life I once saw somebody
drowning in a addictive garba drowning
in a place called a blue hole in Egypt
from his perspective from his own camera
on himself I saw pc david roth band’s
final tweets and i’d like to play those
tweets for you but i want to make the
point that we’re not at the edge of a
screen where within a technology that is
vast and ancient and old a place or the
outsource the very questions about
what it is to be us and I feel that my
experience tells me that this technology
helps us reach out and find out what it
is to be human and that that’s what we
need to do now within the momentum that
we all feel is that the skill we need to
learn is to remember to keep reaching
out to what is human my experience
sitting cross leg at the British Museum
not knowing what the hell to do next but
somehow reaching out to something to
humanity was the thing that helps me
move forward so I’m going to play PC
David Ragan’s final tweets you now but
I’m going to join you because I think
it’s something that we should experience
together I think we’ve got every reason
to be positive every reason to be
optimistic if we learn the skill of
trying to find a human within the
timeline at danger Scouse things will
change between you and your family and
time you just have to wait a bit trust
me enjoy your barbecue smiley face at
metimos David please talk to someone
close to you you’re feeling like you’re
at the bottom right now but I know you
can spring back at metimos at Dave wrath
band my heart goes out to you my other
half was disabled through the job he do
not his wife you left him while in rehab
Siri dictate febri the 24th 5-10 p.m.
our IP pc wrath band at metimos are
they’ve a raft band or something I know
David your numbers not up yet you have
many many people who care for you
granted we can’t replace the past at Los
Normandin hope the police will look
after at David wrath band he’s obviously
on the edge reading his recent time runs
off at mommy Barrow anybody know up
David Rathburn personally worrying
tweets at Phil jebecca at David Roth
banter you desperately need help to get
through this David don’t try alone
there’s people who can help you can do
silly dictate if every the 25th I have
behaved terribly towards my wife since I
got shot and she has done all that she
can to support me that David Cox no one
knows how you feel being for what you
have it’s bound to change a person you
have angry moments and do the wrong
city dictate very emotional few days but
back on track now focusing on my trip
back to the UK and the road ahead at
metimos updated rap band if you need
some R&R you can always come up here to
the beach northern Mozambique is
different beers cold sun’s warm
silly dictate thank you for your
positive comments I’m trying my best
sometimes they get it wrong sorry [Music]