social experiment

A hidden-camera social experiment in a park where three people try to steal a bike in the open: a white teenager, a black teenager and a young woman. It records how bystanders react to each.

A social experiment in which an 18-year-old woman runs a Tinder profile as a man and sees how differently the dating experience plays out for men.

Chamath Palihapitiya's Stanford GSB View From The Top talk on money as an instrument of change. HN mostly knows it for his remarks on social media's dopamine-driven feedback loops and regrets about Facebook.

Sandy Pentland of MIT presents his book on social physics, which uses big-data studies of how people interact to explain how ideas spread. He describes findings on collective intelligence and social influence.

A short clip demonstrating a phone-based social engineering trick in which a crying baby in the background is used to pressure a customer service rep. It shows how attackers exploit human sympathy rather than technical flaws.

A VICE News piece on China's Social Credit System, including a neighbor-watch pilot where paid watchers record behavior. It covers rewards for high scores and public shaming or restrictions for low ones.

Casey Neistat's social experiment in New York City where he tries to 'steal' his own bike with various tools, showing how little stops passers-by from helping.

A short social experiment video in which people mimic the New York subway practice of workers pointing at signs and signals. It makes the point cheerfully.

A Swedish fiber provider's short experiment in which volunteers wear Oculus Rift headsets that add lag to their view of real life. They try to do everyday tasks like making pancakes.

Washington Post video of the experiment in which violinist Joshua Bell played incognito at a D.C. metro station. It asks whether commuters would notice a world-class musician in an ordinary setting.

A four-minute Onion Talks parody in which a social media consultant pitches never putting any effort into social marketing. It lampoons TED-style talks and marketing consultants.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo explains how ordinary people can be pushed into doing evil by situations and systems. He draws on the Stanford prison experiment and unseen Abu Ghraib photos, then turns to the opposite case: how ordinary people can become heroes.

A commentary video by YouTuber PaymoneyWubby reacting to children's content on the Musical.ly app, which became TikTok. It highlights the child-safety concerns of young kids dancing on a public social platform.

A Channel 4 News interview with technologist Jaron Lanier, who argues that social media damages people's lives. He discusses how Facebook, YouTube and Google use algorithms and data collection to shape what users see.

A short animated lesson, featuring Dr. Quantum, on the double slit experiment and how observing electrons seems to change their behavior.

Veritasium visits Richard Lenski's lab to explain the decades-long E. coli evolution experiment, which asks how repeatable evolution is and shows bacteria evolving to use a new food source.

Jonathan Haidt's Hayek Lecture at Duke argues American universities pursue two potentially incompatible sacred values, truth and social justice. He discusses campus conflict, honor, dignity and victimhood cultures, and viewpoint diversity.

Vsauce explores how human reasoning works, drawing on the social theory of reason and the extended mind thesis, made in partnership with Bill Gates around climate change.

A 2006 video showing a man openly cutting the lock and stealing a bike in New York City while passersby, including police, ignore him.

Sociologist and comedian Harald Eia argues in a TEDxOslo talk that Nordic social democracies produce more rich people per capita than the US or UK. He credits high taxes, welfare and strong unions for creating a safety net that enables risk taking.

An Extra Credits episode on China's Sesame Credit, which gamifies obedient citizenship through a social score. It covers how the system rewards conformity and pressures people through their friends' behavior.

A Kurzgesagt video arguing that social media's problem is information flooding and tribal polarization. It suggests a return to smaller online communities and more in-person interaction.

Gary Vaynerchuk's Web 2.0 Expo keynote on building a personal brand in social media. He urges keeping a day job while building something on the side, with passion and persistence, in a loud and profane style.

Megan McArdle's AEI Vision Talk 'Capital and Poverty' argues that social and financial capital work differently in low-income communities, and that this explains barriers to reaching the middle class.

A 72-hour timelapse of Reddit's 2017 April Fools' experiment r/place, a collaborative pixel canvas where each user could place one pixel every few minutes. The frames come from an image archive and the Reddit API.

Veritasium revisits Thomas Young's original double slit experiment with light, showing how interference supports the wave nature of light. It uses a pond-wave demonstration to explain the pattern.

Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Jason Calacanis about how he bought into the mythology of Silicon Valley, which he calls a Ponzi scheme, and about rebuilding Social Capital. He urges founders to grow slowly and build what matters.

Excerpts from W. Edwards Deming's Red Bead Experiment, where workers draw beads from a bowl and are judged on red ones that are largely down to chance. It shows how system variation, not individual effort, drives results.

A short experiment dissolving the aluminum of a Coca-Cola can with drain cleaner to reveal the clear plastic film lining inside.

A two-minute clip of Richard Feynman on the social sciences, discussing what counts as real science versus pseudo science.

CGP Grey explains how ideas spread like germs, and why content that triggers outrage spreads fastest, using a study on what makes online content viral. He argues that opposing outrage-driven memes feed each other.

An excerpt of Simon Sinek on Inside Quest discussing millennials in the workplace. He covers parenting, technology, social media dopamine and what that means for managers.

Vsauce's Michael Stevens stages a realistic version of the trolley problem with unsuspecting subjects who believe they must decide a life-or-death outcome. The Mind Field episode compares what people say they would do with what they actually do.

A short clip of Robert Sapolsky on how social hierarchy generates chronic stress, drawing on baboon research. It links rank-related stress to heart health and life expectancy.

Joseph Henrich's Talks at Google presentation of his book. He argues that human success comes from collective brains and cultural learning across generations rather than individual intelligence.

A one-minute clip from Frans de Waal's TED talk showing two capuchin monkeys given unequal rewards (cucumber versus grape) for the same task. The monkey receiving the lesser reward reacts with protest.

CGP Grey explains the history of the US Social Security card and number, and why they became a de facto national ID despite never being meant for it. He also covers why America resists a proper identity card.

Channel 4's George Clarke visits a council estate in Vienna and is surprised by amenities such as swimming pools and private TV channels. It showcases Vienna's high-quality social housing.

Jayson E. Street's DEF CON 19 talk shows photos from real security engagements where he was already inside client facilities, illustrating how social engineering and physical intrusion can cause huge losses. For each attack he also explains what defenses would have stopped him.

Benn Jordan examines the role of bots and propaganda accounts on X and other social platforms, including the platform's decline and the influence of Russian operations. It covers more than bots, discussing bias and how the platform changed.