Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Surviving the Internet - TPR's In Focus - March 19, 2026

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Surviving the Internet - TPR's In Focus - March 19, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives
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  at Troy University's Dothan Campus,
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  identifying and preserving historical documents
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  and photographs for research related
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  to the Wiregrass region.
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  More information at troy.edu slash Wiregrass Archives.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  In the fall of 2020, we recorded an interview
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  with Dr. Linda Ulrich about a topic
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  more important today than ever.
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  While talking with one of her dental patients,
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  she realized that there was too much negativity
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  being pushed out on the internet.
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  So the Vermont dentist decided to do something about it.
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  She began teaching new ways to cope
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  with the negativity on social media
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  and she launched a book, Happiness is an Option,
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  thriving instead of surviving in the era of the internet.
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  And she launched a website, Ever Widening Circles.
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  So we called Dr. Linda as her patients refer to her
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  to find out how she does this.
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  Dr. Linda Ulrich, thank you so much for joining us
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  from St. Albans, Vermont today.
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  I'm delighted to be here.
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  Thanks for asking me to speak.
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  You're the author of the book,
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  Happiness is an Option, thriving instead of surviving
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  in the era of the internet.
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  Give us a little history lesson
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  about how we got here with the internet.
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  The details of this are pretty interesting.
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  In 1993, there were only 130 websites
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  and by 2003, there were 40 million.
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  And really how we got here with the attention economy
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  is that an organizing principle,
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  when you went from 130 to 40 million,
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  something had to rise up that organized
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  the way we found each other on the internet.
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  And not by design, I don't think, it became attention.
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  I think attention rose to the surface
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  and then people with questionable intention
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  started figuring out ways to capture
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  and keep our attention on the internet.
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  And that's how we got here,
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  because we human beings, Carolyn,
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  are built to give our attention to scary things,
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  things that hint of disorder or danger.
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  You know, Dr. Linda, it's interesting
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  that they started out billing it as the information age
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  and you're talking about the attention economy
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  with all of this vying for our attention.
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  Seven years ago, something happened in your life
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  that sort of turned your attention
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  around concerning the internet.
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  What was that?
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  Well, I had been a dentist for 25 years
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  and in 2013, I had a long, long, long relationship history
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  with thousands of people where I always found something
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  to celebrate in their lives when people come in.
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  So a young boy who found himself in a foxhole
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  in a very bleak part of the world
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  wrote me an email one day
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  where he described how hopeless things looked to him.
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  There and when he heard news from home,
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  because I had always been kind of a positive force
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  in his life, he was hoping I had an answer.
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  And I dove into the internet, Carolyn,
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  to try to find a place on the internet
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  with no politics, no commercial agenda,
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  where I could send him to have hope
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  that the future was still bright.
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  And when I couldn't find any place at all
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  to send him with a clear conscience,
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  I was moved to invent it.
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  And so in 2014, I started a website
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  called everwideningcircles.com,
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  where we have literally been telling the stories
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  of insight and innovation and heroes going uncelebrated.
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  In your book, happiness is an option.
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  You sort of turn things around
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  and tell us that we don't have to be at the mercy
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  of the internet and its algorithms.
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  And what do you mean by algorithms?
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  You know, most of us who view the internet
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  have this strange occurrence where we'll Google something
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  and then from then on, every single ad
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  is pointed at that thing that we Googled.
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  Nowadays, it's gotten even scarier
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  where we'll mention something out and about,
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  and then it'll start showing up on our ads.
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  Well, an algorithm was originally meant
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  to be a shortcut on the internet
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  so we could get the information we wanted quicker.
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  It's like a way to look at what we last clicked on
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  and serve us more of that.
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  The internet is now built to look
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  at every single thing we ever clicked on
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  and how long we stayed there.
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  It guesses what we wanna see next.
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  And of course, with each of us,
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  the difference in what we see now on the internet
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  is as unique as a fingerprint.
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  So what I'm teaching people is that we have all the power
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  to decide what we give our attention to
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  and therefore what we see on the internet will change.
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  So I'm teaching people to make shifts
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  in the way they interact with the internet
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  that will make all the difference in the world
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  on the things that they see popping up in front of them.
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  Most of us see doom and gloom
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  because without knowing any better,
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  we've been clicking on that.
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  So that's what content creators are creating.
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  But we can change all that if about 25% of us
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  make a change in what we click on.
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  And you're talking about rising above the negativity.
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  Well, we've had enough negativity this year,
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  as you well know.
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  So how can we get in charge of our emotions
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  and turn that negativity that we find all over the internet
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  into positivity?
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  Okay, so the first thing I tell people,
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  whenever they see something that attracts their attention,
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  anything on the internet, just pause.
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  Pause for a second before you click on anything
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  and shift up to a thoughtful part of our brain and say,
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  do we really need more of this?
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  And if we all stopped clicking on the chaos and the noise
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  and the unhelpful voices that are just shouting
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  and really not being thoughtful,
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  the internet would change seemingly overnight,
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  at least to us as individuals,
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  because our algorithms would start sending us other things.
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  The rationale here is that if the internet is built
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  to give us more of what we give our attention to,
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  we can give our attention to helpful,
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  thoughtful people in places on the internet.
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  It will fundamentally change its role in our life.
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  It can become like a tool.
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  You're talking about mastering social media
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  so that we're not at the mercy of social media.
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  And I noticed that your website, Ever Widening Circles,
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  has so many uplifting subjects on it,
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  but you've found a way to put it in one place.
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  Yes, so because of the attention economy,
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  what's rising to the surface on the internet
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  is not a clear picture of all of reality.
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  What we're seeing on the internet
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  and on social media for that matter
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  is only a slice of reality.
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  And there are countless good people
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  just throwing themselves out the most amazing projects
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  all over the world.
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  But because of the way the internet is built,
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  we don't see enough of it.
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  And therefore we're not getting the whole picture
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  of what's possible.
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  So at Ever Widening Circles,
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  we just publish the stuff that should be celebrated
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  along with the knowledge that the world is imperfect.
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  But if we have both sides of that,
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  we can go forward with different worldview.
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  Dr. Linda, let me ask you one final question.
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  What do we do about cyberbullying?
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  This is a very, very difficult problem in society
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  because we are by nature helpers and we want to defend.
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  So when we see something like bullying on the internet,
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  our impulse, of course, is to be a helper and a rescuer
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  and put in our own two cents to protect somebody's dignity.
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  But one of the things I help people understand
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  is that when we click on things,
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  even if it's out of the best intention,
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  it's like giving all that negativity a vote.
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  So when we're gonna engage in big problems
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  like cyberbullying,
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  we have to make sure we're coming at it
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  with very measured, thoughtful, helpful,
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  positive approaches.
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  Because adding to the noise just excites this impulse
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  and it furthers the negativity.
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  It just gets it going like a snowball.
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  If you can find ways to articulate your point of view
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  in a way that doesn't incite outrage in the other side,
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  then you can actually have a positive impact
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  on the dialogue from that moment forward.
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  But the best way to rein in a lot of the negativity
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  and meanness on the internet is to ignore more.
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  Just reserve our clicks
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  and make sure we're sharing the positive people
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  who are in situations like that
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  and adding something thoughtful.
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  Dr. Linda, thank you for your work,
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  making the world a more positive place,
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  especially for social media.
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  All right, have a great day.
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  That was Dr. Linda Ulrich,
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  a Vermont dentist who is helping people learn new ways
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  to bring positivity to social media
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  and the internet experience.
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  Her website is Ever Widening Circles
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  and her book is Happiness is an Option,
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  Thriving Instead of Surviving in the Era of the Internet.
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  She joined us in October of 2020
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  and in March of 2021,
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  she did a TED Talk called The Power of Pause.
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  Thanks for joining us today for In Focus.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson and this is Troy Public Radio.