For many people, especially those under 40, paying a friend, or settling a restaurant bill, or squaring up after happy hour isn’t done in cash. It’s done by peer to peer app.  You’ve probably heard of PayPal and Venmo, which PayPal owns. Now, there’s some competition from Zelle, the big banks’ answer to Venmo. Rahul Chadha follows peer to peer mobile banking for the research organization eMarketer.  His firm says Zelle will overtake Venmo this year. One thing that helps?  Zelle comes pre-installed in the mobile apps of many big banks. Chadha spoke with Marketplace’s Lizzie O’Leary about whether that’s enough to lift Zelle up. (07/30/2018)

In the last installment of our series on the trade-offs of technology, a discussion about screen time. How much is too much? And is there a right kind of screen time and a wrong kind? To answer that, we kind of need to know: What are screens doing to our children’s brains? One person studying that is Dr. Megan Moreno, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin. She’ll talk with us on today’s show about how media use affects kids. (07/27/2018)

From recommendations to notifications to endless scrolling that never stops giving you something new, today’s tech is designed to be irresistible. But some designers of these products now say these techniques are damaging. James Williams is one of those people. He spent 10 years at Google and then co-founded a movement called Time Well Spent, which aims to get tech companies to re-think how they grab and monetize our attention. He’s also the author of the book “Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy.” He talked with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about the way forward for tech companies.

This week we’re looking at the grand bargain of technology with the next generation of users in mind. Today we’re looking at how kids deal with the complexity of digital life and how companies could make things easier or safer. Danah Boyd is a principal researcher at Microsoft and the founder of the research organization Data & Society, and much of her research looks at how kids are affected by the digital societies they live in. She talked with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood. (07/25/2018)

As part of our series on the grand bargain of tech and what it means for kids, we are taking a look at what happens when children form a bond with the robotic toys and digital assistants in their lives. MIT researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying what happens to empathy when products are designed to make kids get attached to them like a buddy, not a machine. Turkle spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about how robots and their attempts at empathy affect the kids they’re targeting. (07/24/2018)  

Between social media, election meddling, privacy concerns and fears of internet addiction, we are at a time when we are re-evaluating the grand bargain that we have made with technology. We’ve gotten used to trading personal information for tailored ads and letting devices into every part of our lives for convenience. But, as we develop these habits and make these trade-offs, what does it mean for our kids? For the next week, we’re going to look at this tech bargain and its impact on the next generation. We’re starting with a conversation about marketing. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked to Marcus Collins, chief consumer connections officer at the Doner creative agency, about how advertisers think about reaching kids. (07/23/2018)

This week, representatives from Google, Twitter and Facebook all spoke at a congressional hearing about how they present news and opinions on their platforms. The next day, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told the Recode podcast that Facebook shouldn’t overregulate speech on the site, even if it means not banning Holocaust deniers. So how much should these companies be responsible for what is said online? Sounds like a good Quality Assurance topic, the segment where we take a deeper look at a big tech story. Marketplace’s Molly Wood talks with Mike Nuñez, editor at Mashable. (07/20/2018)

IBM reported earnings Wednesday. The company has been on a long turnaround path, focusing its business on cloud services, security and data analytics. It’s also investing in artificial intelligence, mostly under the brand of the “Jeopardy”-winning supercomputer Watson. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks to Brandon Purcell, an analyst with Forrester, about the profit potential of artificial intelligence for IBM and other tech companies. (07/19/2018)

Research from Google says 70 percent of teenage YouTube subscribers say they relate more to online creators than traditional celebrities. According to the research firm L2, 70 percent of companies use social media influencers to market products. As part of our series on the creator economy, Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked to Troy Solomon, who has more than 45,000 Instagram followers for his verified account A Bear Named Troy. (07/18/2018)