Katherine Ormerod and Julian Baggini Chaired by Stephen Law

Fashion journalist and social media influencer Katherine Ormerod and philosopher Dr Julian Baggini debate whether social media is ruining our lives or a force for good.

Does social media make us better connected, better informed, and far more effective at what we do? Or has social media rewired our behavioural patterns, destroyed our confidence, and shattered our attention spans? Has social media created a pressure cooker of comparison and unreachable levels of perfection, blighting the lives of the young? If so, what can we do about it?

Ormerod is a fashion journalist who has worked at Sunday Times Style, Grazia and Glamour, where she was fashion features editor at large, and author of Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life. She has more than 40,000 followers.

Baggini is the author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books including How The World Thinks, The Virtues of the Table, The Ego Trick, Freedom Regained and The Edge of Reason. He was founding editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and has written for newspapers and magazines and for the The Institute of Public Policy Research, Demos and Counterpoint.

Discussions are chaired by Dr Stephen Law, philosopher, editor of The Royal Institute of Philosophy Journal Think – Philosophy for Everyone and author of The Philosophy Gym and The Complete Philosophy Files.