Week 4 Lab: TED Talk Videos

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Hogwarts Castle, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
(Source)
I watched two videos about the power of storytelling. The first was "The Danger of a Single Story" which discussed how easy it is to form harmful stereotypes when we only see a single story of who people are, or how they live and act. When we only see stories of "the poor starving children of Africa", we may not realize that there are thriving metropolises, culture, diversity, or literature there. It is only by providing other stories that we can combat this.

The second video I watched was "Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences: Parasocial Relationships". This video explored our emotional attachment to fictional characters. It noted the similarities and differences between how we interact with fictional characters and certain real people, like politicians or celebrities. It further went on to explore how the emotional attachments we have to fictional characters can be leveraged to create good in the world.

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