Composition

The TED talk “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day” by Tristan Harris is constructed in a clear way, which is easy to follow. 

In the introduction, Harris presents the topic of his talk, which is the influence of tech companies and internet platforms on human psychology: 

I want you to imagine walking into a room, a control room with a bunch of people, a hundred people, hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. (ll. 1-3)

Harris immediately captures the audience’s attention and explains that the issues he is going to discuss “might sound like science fiction” (l. 3), but are actually real. 

In the middle of his talk, Harris focuses on the problems created by tech companies and internet platforms which take advantage...