How efficiency erodes empathy | Priyasha Ghosal | TEDxHunting Valley

A phone at 4 percent, a DoorDash order, a charger at the hotel door in thirty minutes: it felt like magic. Priyasha Ghosal asks who the magician really is, and shows how friction cannot be erased, only moved onto the people we no longer have to see. Her answer is intentional friction: a three-second pause between wanting something and tapping for it. Priyasha Ghosal is a sophomore at Hawken School. At twelve she founded Light of Love, a 501(c)(3) supporting pediatric cancer patients at St. Jude and Rainbow Babies. She is a nationally recognized math competitor, a competitive dancer, and a national debate semifinalist, and she led sixteen teens to raise more than $22,000 for cardiac disease awareness in eight weeks. Her talk, “The Human Cost of Convenience,” starts with a 9:32 PM DoorDash order and asks who the magician behind instant gratification really is. Her argument: friction cannot be erased, only moved, and what we call convenience is human labor we no longer have to witness. She closes with the case for intentional friction, a three-second pause between wanting and tapping that keeps our patience, and our empathy, human. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx