Ted Talk: An Analysis

The TED Talk, “The surprisingly logical minds of babies,” was presented by Laura Schulz who is an associate professor of cognitive science in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at MIT. Schulz has been studying about how babies and children learn various things very quickly. During this presentation, Schulz focused on generalization and causal reasoning during infant stage.

The topic of optimism bias, according to the Ted Talk, and overconfidence, from the textbook, are similar in the way they affect a person’s decision making. The Ted Talk conducted by Dr. Tali Sharot discusses optimism bias which is “our tendency to overestimate our likelihood of experiencing good events in our lives and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing bad events.” Overconfidence as described by the textbook is “tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgements.” Both of these affect our thought process when making a decision. Dr. Sharot describes the studies she has performed in her lab and has seen first hand the way optimism bias influences people’s answers. She observed recently married couples what their

In Vernā Myers’ TED Talk “How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly towards them,” originally presented at TEDxBeaconStreet, diversity advocate Myers argues that peoples’ subconscious attitudes are affecting the prospering of black people in society. She also proposes three ideas on how to overcome our biases, which will open a world of possibilities where everyone no matters his or her ethnicity or race has equal opportunities to succeed in this constantly changing environment. According to Myers, the first step to overcome our prejudices is to acknowledge the biases that subconsciously influence our attitudes towards black people. According to Myers, “our default is white,” this demonstrates that people are more likely to trust white people

The speaker of this “TED Talks” episode is an African-American man, Freeman Hrabowski. He grew up in Birmingham, AL and survived the Martin Luther King civil rights movement, and is now the President of the University of Maryland in Baltimore. When he was just 12 years old, his parents, although hesitant, let him go to the civil rights movement and march with Dr. King and his convoy. He was thrown in jail, along with Dr. King and some others.

The Ted talk is by Michelle Alexander who is a lawyer, advocate and a scholar. She starts by speaking of criminals (poor people and people of color usually) that are locked up in cages and often treated worse than animals. They stripped of civil and human rights. She talks about the criminal justice system acting as a cast system. She tried to work to get rid of racial bias.

In the Ted Talk, “How Augmented Reality Will Change Sports...and Build Empathy” Chris Kluwe discusses how augmented reality should be implemented in daily lives. Augmented reality allows people to see what someone else is seeing. It gives a different perspective for fans to experience what the players are going through. Chris Kluwe explains how augmented reality can be used in football. He says how it can be installed in the player’s visor, and it will provide information such as plays, and oncoming tacklers.

TED Talks are videos online where a speaker talks about a certain issue in today’s society. The speaker will make a claim, and it is up to the audience to determine if they support it successfully or not. In the Talk “How to raise a black son in America”, Clint Smith uses a variety of rhetorical techniques to successfully make a claim that black children are raised differently than white children. To begin the Talk, Smith brings in his audience by showing how his parents gave him advice he was unsure of why he had to follow. To give a small example, he asks, “Why couldn’t I put jelly beans in my oatmeal?”(0:25)

This Tedx talk was by Ron Espiritu, an educator of ethnic, Chicano and African American studies for high school students in south Los Angeles. He has found that ethnic studies is empowering, liberating and transformative for young people. Ron talks about researchers finding that ethnic studies has positive academic and social results for students of all races and ethnic backgrounds. He talks about his grandmother being forced to wear a sign on her chest saying she won't speak Spanish. I never knew that schools were against different languages to this extent. I thought it was acceptable to speak different languages, I was very wrong. Ron goes on to talk about his mother who used her mother as an inspiration. He talks about his mother becoming

Mallory Soldner, in her TED Talk “Your company’s data could end world hunger” given at a TED Institute event in 2016, successfully argues that if companies donate data, decision scientists, and technology to gather new sources of data to humanitarian organizations, that lives can be saved. Soldner is able to support her claims by sharing her experiences using data to drive efficiencies, save money, and feed more people while working for the World Food Program. In Soldner’s TED Talk, she uses ethos to build credibility and rapport with the audience. Solder also uses logos by detailing her experience at the World Food Program and demonstrating the value of the data, and explaining why it makes business sense. Soldner’s target audience is executives of large companies.

Twenty multi-million business owner, Tai Lopez, took the stage at an independent Tedx Talk back in 2015. In the video, Lopez uses persuasive language to convince the viewers the significance of mentors. First, Lopez pulls the audience in my mentioning his grandmother, “My grandmother was born not too far from here in Berlin, Germany. She’s 96 years old, by the way and she said ‘Tai, tell them hello’’. By mentioning his grandmother, he is trying to get the audience to relate to him and make them feel more comfortable. Another persuasive method he uses throughout all of the video is pathos through his stories. An example of this is when Lopez is talking about how he found his mentor and how it lead up to him searching for one. He tries to engage the audience and to get them to connect to the story so he can influence them. Overall, Lopez is victorious in coaxing his audience by the sheer amount of persuasion that he uses.

Michelle Obama once said during her Velvet Glove Convention Speech, “We learned about honesty and integrity that the truth matters... that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules... and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square.” This quotation means that learning comes from honestly and integrity, speaking the truth is important in order to succeed in the future. This quotation relates to the Ted Talk speech How great leaders inspire action, by Simon Sinek because he explains how many companies such as Apple succeed with consumers buying there products through the method of the golden circle. Leaders who make an impact in society, companies, and many high officials that inspire us, Simon Sinek revealed there

In the Ted Talk given by Hetain Patel, Hetain uses the stereotypes of his physical appearance to his advantage against the audience in order to help establish his theme of the Ted Talk, which is perception. He begins the Ted Talk speaking in Chinese mandarin, while a translator sits beside him and translates what he is saying to the audience. About a minute into the ted talk the translator reveals that Hetain was born and raised near Manchester England and that he is actually repeating the same paragraph of Chinese mandarin each time he is speaking to the audience. He actually knows English but he chose to speak in mandarin so he could “avoid any assumptions made about him due to his northern accent.” Basically wanted to avoid others using

In “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent,” Safwat Saleem, shows his passion and his courageous side when speaking in his Ted Talk, describing the main idea of there not being such a thing of normalcy, as well as arguing that individuals should be confident and accept who they are from their special qualities. Agreeing with Saleem (2016), however to also consider it has become common in today’s society to want to be normal. Therefore many people would not agree with wanting to be exactly known as quote on quote ‘normal’ but they may want to assimilate to norms because that person is or may be in a unique way socially accepted.

The TED Talk video that I watched was Why do we sleep by Russel Foster. This TED talk was about why we need sleep and how getting less than the suggested amount affects the brain. There are three main reasons why we need sleep; restoration, energy conservation, and brain function. Only certain genes are turned on when you sleep so you need to sleep in order for those genes to turn on and allow you other genes to be restored, while sleeping you save about 110 calories, sleep helps enhance creativity, and your brain is less likely to retain information if you’re sleep deprived and trying to cram information. On average a teen needs 9 hours of sleep, in the 1950s the average teen was getting 8 hours of sleep, today on average teens are getting 5 hours of sleep, which is half the amount that we need. If you’re not receiving the amount of sleep that you need your body will uncountable got into micro-sleeping which will happen to at least 31% of drivers in their lifetime.

When it comes to choice it always seems to be a love hate relationship: we hate making them, but we can’t live without them. Anyone can all look back to a time in our lives where they wish someone could just pick for us, or times when we wish there were more to choose from. All Americans have many choices, and it is such a part of our daily lives that we don’t even realize it. Barry Schwartz and Sheena Iyengar‘s TED talks bring up interesting ideas about choice, how people deal with them and their affects. They both state that although choice is good, it can also have negative effects. Schwartz explains what most people believe and experience with choice, while Iyengar shows cultural differences in choice making. Both Schwartz and Iyengar