Resources for online media awareness
A
Abusive online behaviour Controlling trolls helps keep social media free But there’s a risk in making trolls more important than we need to.
See also: Etiquette; Privacy; Safety; Security; Trolls
Ad blockers The death of the online ad agency? Thanks to increasingly sophisticated adblockers?
Addiction, social media
Addiction treatment centre Most of what we see on the internet has a better chance of being false than what we see on our street.
Math profs devastate social media “popularity” Various studies have shown that teenagers consistently overestimate the amount of alcohol and drugs their friends consume.
Portrait of a social media addict … Social media addiction is like any other kind; you spend all your time pursuing an imagined happiness that an addiction can never give.
Screen addiction Why screen addiction matters to children Many parents seem unaware of the harm.
See also: Health; Safety
Amazon
Amazon wants kids Real bad. We may need to want them more.
Amazon suing over fake online reviews Researchers have developed consumer tips for spotting the fakes.
Amazon’s “Workplace Hell,” Part II Part II Jeff Lockhart was not “killed on the job.” But his death spotlights a growing reality for blue collar workers in North America.
Apple vs. FBI, Free internet is at stake Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Could the internet outlive humanity? That seems like a strange question, but there is a background to it.
People may betray us, AI can’t The AI program for lonely people is a great listener. As if.
Transhumanism At least one reason why transhumanism will not translate into reality The future that the futurists predict is in the past.
Will artificial intelligence kill our jobs? That depends. It depends in part on what we understand our jobs to be.
Artificial intelligence (AI). See also: Automation; Robotics; Virtual reality
Astroturf The internet can help the grass roots grow—or lay down astroturf False climates of opinion can be built up through new media.
Automation
Is Uber just a step toward self-driving cars? Maybe. But for most of its existence, the automobile has stood for personal independence.
Will automation steal jobs that require intelligence? Part I There aren’t easy answers.
Will automation also steal jobs that require intelligence? Part II People don’t want jobs they enjoy ended. See also: Artificial intelligence; Jobs; Robotics
B
Big Data
Can massive databases reveal a whole new set of truths? The myth of Big Data is that it is a magical way around relating to people in order to understand them.
Why Big Data will not solve any problems just by getting Bigger
And when politicians get involved, the results can be memorable.Will the rise of Big Data be the death of politics? Resistance means exchanging the risks from expansive government for the risks of an ungoverned life.
Blogging
Are blogs really out of date? Depends. Competition from anybody with an internet connection makes new media different from old media.
Ethics for the citizen journalist If you write for online publications today, you are a citizen journalist
Books
Internet and books When was the last time you sat down and read a whole book in sequence? Honestly? People were buying our books for their nephews or their pastors or whoever else they thought “ought to” read them. They themselves were “too busy” to read books.
Amazon Must Amazon’s monopoly be stopped? Can it be? Information is immaterial, so it survives changes in media.
A surprising fact about YA novels: Many readers are forty years old. Hmmmm. Are the novels more grown-up or the adults less so?
How does the internet affect copyright? If you teach, preach, or reach anyone online—what are your copyright issues?
Good news! Internet worse for bookstores than for reading, Part II The internet changed how authors and readers find each other
Books, Are libraries just too unCool to survive in an internet age? We can’t discard what libraries do.
When the bookstore closes, do the lights go out on culture? In one case, the atmosphere suddenly electrified.
Good news! The internet is worse for bookstores than for reading Part I Dust settled, many books and readers have crawled out alive
Business, Do Big Box stores go to heaven when they die? Innocent victims, murdered by the internet?
C
Censorship
The biggest problem with rapidly advancing technology is the one no one talks about And maybe soon won’t be allowed to.
Banned words? How about better speech? Needed discussions can get shut down by claims that one is victimized by “hate speech”
Decision time for Facebook: Censor or no? But on whose behalf does the social media giant censor?
Some things to consider before you vote. Demands for censorship now come from universities. Why?
Children
Should we restrict children’s/teens’ internet use? Taiwan is doing so.
The unreal, unhealthy world kids can see online That parents may never have heard of. No wonder Steve Jobs was low tech at home.
Civil liberties
The rise of the campus brownshirt in the academic wasteland Brownshirts are political thugs bent on suppressing civil liberties or ideas they disapprove via noisy demonstrations, hinting at violence to come.
You’d wonder when you see some of the headlines. The internet does not always increase freedom. It can sometimes equalize it somewhere between free and unfree.
Civilized world cannot recover its will? The civil liberties we take for granted were won by a Judaeo-Christian culture.
Freedom of speech (if you mean it) makes for strange bedfellows We know that we are a nation in part because we can disagree peacefully on controversial issues
Copyright
How does the internet affect copyright? If you teach, preach, or reach anyone online—what are your copyright issues?
Crime
Internet can foster crime or addiction, but weigh remedies carefully People sometimes argue whether the ends justify the means. The reality is that the means shape the ends.
Did new media play a role in police violence in Ferguson, Missouri? Yes. Suggestion to chief: Send next departmental memo to your procedures manual authors. Not to God. New media have sharpened policing issues because anyone may post photos from a comparatively safe distance.
Does the internet aid human trafficking? Yes. It makes everything faster, cheaper, and easier.
Social media created the flash mob Social media enable a large group of people to co-ordinate a criminal event.
Predictive policing: Have we given up on community policing? Some want police to snoop on social media to identify pre-criminals and create files on them.
Culture
Is the internet guilty of killing high culture?By making everything equally free and accessible, the internet shone a spotlight on what we do want. And that is our responsibility.
Cyberbullying
Yik Yak: Digital dorm room or cyberbullying? Words on social media are stripped of voice and context.
Yes, we need to crack down on cyberbullying But victims must help! Stop being victims!
Coping with the shamestorms of social media. First, grow an alligator hide.
It used to be only celebs and politicians could just trash people on line
Not now.Public shaming on the internet: Good? Bad? Think before we retweet? There is strength in numbers for good or ill.
D
Data, data storage Writing for the internet is like writing on water The internet may be forever; our pages are not.
Dating
Dating apps: A date with HIV? It’s making a comeback due to the online hookup culture.
How internet dating affects teens: Commercializing Brave New World – internet relationships: casual, evanescent, faceless, and graceless
How internet dating helps to mainstream porn It will be hard to maintain laws against child pornography.
internet dating Why the explosion of internet dating? Huge increase in singles living online.
Ashley Madison may be doomed; others not Other sites’ fate probably depends on how important users consider fidelity to be.
Ashley Madison hack: Non-cheaters, listen too. Victims may also include people living in countries where adultery is punishable by death.
Ashley Madison? The shards land In general, the world is a reasonable place, and reasonable people should know that.
“sexting” Study: Underage sexting is common but risks child porn law charges The Anthony Weiner scandal would be instructive, if only one can get the kids to stop giggling.
Death
Digital Afterlife: How the Internet Has Changed Mourning and Bereavement Users can post computer-composed messages after death.
Can the internet make loved ones “immortal”? Attitudes to death are becoming increasingly weird in both the actual and the digital world.
E
E-mail, spam filters force Nigerian prince to abdicate? Obvious bandwidth wastes decline, replaced by much more sophisticated malware, spyware, focusing on social media.
Education
online degrees Can online degrees help make education more accessible? We can find out in advance whether a degree is likely to form the basis of a career or just be an expensive labour of love.
Isn’t university a little too expensive as babysitting for adults?
Why school internet filters are important A school is not a shopping mall. Under compulsory education acts, students within a certain age range are required to be at school by law.
illiteracy, Does reading on screen lead to greater illiteracy?
There doesn’t seem to be hard evidence that e-reading inclines people who would read serious works to start reading celeb gossip mags or vampire potboilers instead.reading online: Get more value from online reading It helps to note some basic differences between reading on line and reading in print.
The internet doesn’t harm the good student, but it makes the poor student worse Students confuse “available” with “helpful”
How much should we invest in creating equal results in boys’ and girls’ education? Boys are not doing as well as girls in school. But why?
Would teens be helped by courses in internet studies? The internet can create holograms but not people
Should we or someone we love go into debt for university? Let’s look at some decision factors.
Should kids fall asleep in front of the screen? It’s not good for a kid to know some screen artifact better than his own neighbours.
High school: Where life without smartphones is a form of death? Life online may have later political implications. Many only solve local problems because we cannot escape.
MOOCs: Is free higher ed help, hype, or havoc?
The galloping cost of university is thought to be one driver of MOOCs’ popularity.
Edward Snowden
Who is Edward Snowden and why should we care about him? Governments monitor the internet to look good, not for our good
“When you collect everything, you understand nothing.” Mass spying on citizens “fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state.”
Employment
Will intelligent technology create mass unemployment? Resulting in a brave new world of adult children who needn’t work?
Will the job bot eat your job? It will damage some job markets
Will artificial intelligence kill our jobs? That depends. It depends in part on what we understand our jobs to be.
Etiquette
inappropriate postings, Is our every thought ready for prime time? No, but social media make us think so.
internet etiquette: Should one pull articles from an internet site? We shouldn’t publish anything we are not ready to defend. Etiquette. See also Trolls
F
Facebook experiments on its users (Part I) Legally, if you consented to their terms of use, you consented to one little word, “research.” But did you know what that meant?
Facebook experiments on its users (Part II) Does the sheer size of the study mean anything, as Big Data enthusiasts claim?
Facebook A young teen—or even a baby—needs to be on Facebook? For what? The FBI eventually found the kidnapped girl.
Is Facebook interfering with midterm US elections? Or any elections? We can’t elect a government to be better than we are.
Facebook friends, Are Facebook friends replacing real friends? Have social media like Facebook and Twitter changed anything?
Fake Facebook friends and their likes probably grew up on a click farm The search string “Buy Facebook likes” introduces us to Fake world
When digital breakups byte too hard We should resist the temptation to get personal on Facebook in the first place. The algorithm does not know, and the world does not care. Let’s save it for the few who do.
Facebook: Censor or no? But on whose behalf does the social media giant censor?
ISIS used murdered journalist’s Facebook page Supporters fear that the pretense that she was still alive was an attempt to ferret out less public dissidents.
Fakes
Artificial intelligence Even a machine can get a degree if no one reads any more Or, as one tech mag put it, “Essay generator can spew out BS, still get you an ‘A'”. And it’s still B.S. And that’s a problem. Even science journals can be fooled into publishing gibberish.
Fakes, Astroturf The internet can help the grass roots grow—or lay down astroturf False climates of opinion can be built up through new media.
Fakes, bafflegab, Generating science bafflegab for fun
Fake friends You’re not alone in having fake new media friends. Science researchers do too. In some cases, it is not accidental.
Fake friends Those friends and followers who think you are cool might not exist Maybe just someone’s bot.
Fake friends, Your fake Facebook friends and their likes probably grew up on a click farm The search string “Buy Facebook likes” introduces us to Fake world
Fake Google maps, How to sink a competitor with Google Maps Google does try to police malicious edits, but it is fighting a losing battle when anyone can enter “information.”
Fakes, hologram Will your hologram replace you? At home and at work?
Fake identities Privacy: Can there really be a “right to be forgotten”? There really is no “right” to be forgotten any more than there is a “right” to be remembered.
Fake journals Artificial intelligence Even a machine can get a degree if no one reads any more Or, as one tech mag put it, “Essay generator can spew out BS, still get you an ‘A'”. And it’s still B.S. And that’s a problem.
Fake news is coming to your town And mine. Big time. And we are talking genuine fakes here.
Fake news Russia’s amazing troll farm Welcome to the Russian troll house. Now flee!
Fake news Artificial news for virtual selves? But offering future news based on past news interests has serious limits.
Fakes, plagiarism The internet is no friend to plagiarism Contrary to its rep as a garbage dump for ideas, that’s the one form of fakery it is not friendly to.
Fakes, Pope Francis vs. new media’s fake world We can build it, but we can’t live there
Fakes, reputation management Staying real in the age of virtual Do we learn about these deceptions in school? Should they? Would it make a difference?
Fake reviews: Amazon suing over fake online reviews Researchers have developed consumer tips for spotting the fakes.
Fake reviews, What really underlies five-star reviews? Often a possibly illegal publicity campaign
Fake science journals Fake reviews, sure… but fake science journals? The internet doesn’t provide the physical cues and clues that help us spot scams.
Fakes, Teen fiction. How much of the internet is teen fiction?internet And how damaging is that?
Families and social media
Aging Will our elders be left behind with dying media? Legacy media are losing the ability to provide serious news
Social media can strengthen families They can help people stay in touch better than any other device invented by human ingenuity. For better or worse.
Smartphones How many kids have smartphones? And what difference does it make?
Stress, Does social media use increase emotional stress for caregivers?It depends on what stresses us.
FBI vs. Apple, Free internet is at stake Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t.
Film, Jumbotron, the smartphone is coming to get you! New tech does not extinguish old art forms. It more often changes their role.
Freedom of expression
Apple vs. FBI Free internet is at stake Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t.
Decision time for Facebook: Censor or no? But on whose behalf does the social media giant censor?
Forbes: Is the internet losing freedom of speech? It’s as if your telephone company were your judge and jury, not the court system.
Freedom of speech, (if you mean it) makes for strange bedfellows We know that we are a nation in part because we can disagree peacefully on controversial issues
Twitter vs. religious conservatives? Enforcing rules against hate speech selectively is worse than not enforcing them at all.
G
Global awareness
Mobile phones Accessible banking for developing Africa? Mobile phones simply make more logistical and environmental sense.
Killed in Mexico’s drug wars: Honest reporting When media are afraid to report the news, there’s another casualty: Informed decision-making and voting.
The internet is actually quite a good tool for oppression Google can make you cease to exist, as far as your fellow citizens are concerned, and the rest is silence.
Fake information How to sink a competitor with Google Maps Google does try to police malicious edits, but it is fighting a losing battle when anyone can enter “information.”
Canadian court orders Google to block sites worldwide, in trade dispute There isn’t a single worldwide standard for what is “extreme.” However, to create the impression of “doing something,” a minority can always be targeted for enforcement.
How big is Google? Is it really a googleplex? No, but it is formidable anyway.
Google vs. the government: Hard to know which side to back New media often feels invisible, still media
Could Google sway an election? If so, how? American psychologist Robert Epstein explains how search engine rankings can be manipulated.
Government
Edward Snowden: “When you collect everything, you understand nothing.” Mass spying on citizens “fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state.”
Transparency, Is “the most secretive White House ever” a new trend? Governments are having a hard time coping with the fire hose of information, and would like to just turn it off.
Government. See also: Internet control
Government. See also: Crime; Freedom; Net neutrality; Policing; Privacy; Surveillance; Terrorism
Grammar Does flunking grammar make a student less adept at new technologies? Maybe. Distinguish between new technologies to build a career vs. those used merely to entertain oneself.
H
Hacking
Law struggles to make sense of the internet Meanwhile, we can expect some strange decisions.
The Sony hack: How the internet changes the balance of power, Part I White House: North Korea attack was not war but “cybervandalism.”
The Sony hack: How the internet changes the balance of power, Part II Hollywood, despite bravado, buckled
Rx against online harassment Tips from five expert sources may help with online safety.
Hate speech, banned words? How about better speech? Needed discussions can get shut down by claims that one is victimized by “hate speech”
Health
Should kids fall asleep in front of the screen? It’s not good for a kid to know some screen artefact better than his own neighbours.
screen addiction Why screen addiction matters to children Many parents seem unaware of the harm.
math profs devastate social media “popularity” Various studies have shown that teenagers consistently overestimate the amount of alcohol and drugs their friends consume.
RSIs: Live to text? Well, it’s your neck … If our index fingers are getting far more exercise than our legs, we are not living healthy.
Health. See also: Safety
Holograms, Will your hologram replace you? At home and at work?
I
Information theory
Why would anyone want to understand information theory?
]Information, Why more information is not the answer to our problems From the lips of Star Trek robot Data, trying to teach his cat not to jump up on things, we learn how that’ll all work out.
The internet does not improve information flow just by existing; Any more than a cure for a disease works if no one applies it.
Information, Will the rise of Big Data be the death of politics? Resistance means exchanging the risks from expansive government for the risks of an ungoverned life.
More informed is NOT necessarily better informed More information is not necessarily an asset if there is no practical way to assess its worth.
Information is not reduced by being shared
Storing knowledge for a million years – in DNA? All civilization’s knowledge could exist within a few cubic metres.
Internet, good or bad Was the wheel (or the internet) a good or a bad invention?
Internet control
Weigh remedies carefully People sometimes argue whether the ends justify the means. The reality is that the means shape the ends.
Canadian court orders Google to block sites worldwide, in trade dispute There isn’t a single worldwide standard for what is “extreme.” However, to create the impression of “doing something,” a minority can always be targeted for enforcement.
If the internet is the problem, is more government really the solution? Stop the express, I want to get off.
Is the internet safe? Well, is our neighbourhood safe? Acting prudently gives us as much peace of mind as we can realistically have in the world as it is.
What’s this about Net Neutrality? Is it a good thing? It means more regulation of internet prices and services, and price increases.
Internet control is not a tinfoil hat cause. Please read this. Few members of the public even know much about the many proposals.
Internet control, Some things to consider before you vote. Demands for censorship now come from universities. Why?
Google vs. the government: Hard to know which side to back New media often feels invisible, still media
The internet does not need policing to enforce social justice Predicted social class does not determine access
Could the internet outlive humanity? That seems like a strange question, but there is a background to it.
The biggest problem with rapidly advancing technology is the one no one talks about And maybe soon won’t be allowed to.
JK
Journalism
ethics for the citizen journalist If you write for online publications today, you are a citizen journalist
ISIS used murdered journalist’s Facebook page Supporters fear that the pretense that she was still alive was an attempt to ferret out less public dissidents.
Killed in Mexico’s drug wars: Honest reporting When media are afraid to report the news, there’s another casualty: Informed decision-making and voting.
L
Law
Altered documents Would the highest court of a Western country alter documents? Yes. The United States Supreme Court does that without notice, and a nifty piece of software has enabled the fact to be discovered
Provincial Canadian court orders Google to block sites worldwide, in trade dispute There isn’t a single worldwide standard for what is “extreme.” However, to create the impression of “doing something,” a minority can always be targeted for enforcement.
Will the internet change defamation law? lawyer: At one time, “only famous people had libel and slander issues.” Not now.
Law, defamation law must catch up with internet age Any blogger who linked to a website held to contain defamatory material—whether the blogger knew the fact or not—could be at risk.
Human rights #I care #But so what? Will social media help or hurt human rights causes? Moral preening has always been with us. We didn’t used to think so highly of it.
internet and crime, weigh remedies carefully People sometimes argue whether the ends justify the means. The reality is that the means shape the ends.
Freedom of speech (if you mean it) makes for strange bedfellows We know that we are a nation in part because we can disagree peacefully on controversial issues
Two underage girls charged: internet fiction motivated attack? “We are just animals” is supposed to be a virtuous concept that causes us to care about animals (one must hope it works out better than the way animals “care about” each other).
Law struggles to make sense of the internet Meanwhile, we can expect some strange decisions.
Libraries
Are libraries just too unCool to survive in an internet age? We can’t discard what libraries do.
The internet doesn’t harm the good student, but it makes the poor student worse Students confuse “available” with “helpful”
Loneliness
Would people really prefer the pain of electric shocks to being alone? Yes. This dread diminishes with the regular practice of solitude, as enjoined in many religious and philosophical traditions.
M
Media
In traditional media, fact doesn’t matter any more, only social virtue Legacy media is now largely popular fiction
Traditional media doesn’t get new media It is called the internet, not the innernet for a reason.
Media, ISIS used murdered journalist’s Facebook page Supporters fear that the pretense that she was still alive was an attempt to ferret out less public dissidents.
Medicine
People seem to be turning against the i[can’t]Carebots—robot caregivers for the elderly Modern medicine has given us the four generation family, good or bad, where grandfather is alive at the same time as his great-grandchildren.
Online medical information:Help, hype, or harm? A new coinage, “cyberchondria,” refers to the worry some people experience from overdosing on medical information online
Robotics Just what the doctor did NOT order: The doctorbot The art of medicine is to persuade the patient at risk to help himself heal.
MOOCs: Is free higher ed help, hype, or havoc? The galloping cost of university is thought to be one driver of MOOCs’ popularity.
NO
Net neutrality
Government control of internet What’s this about Net Neutrality? Is it a good thing? It means more regulation of internet prices and services, and price increases.
Net neutrality, what’s next? Government may rule internet safety but not taxis
Net neutrality, Five things to know about government’s proposed net neutrality
We may end up refighting the free speech battle.The basics—what does it really mean? Is the internet really just like a telephone service?
Netflix
Netflix wants our kids Real bad. We may need to want them more.
News
Artificial news for virtual selves? But offering future news based on past news interests has serious limits. See also Fakes
P
Parenting
This girl has one smart dad… He didn’t just get out his check book
Why Steve Jobs was a low tech parent, and why it isn’t really all that surprising Children are at risk for internet addiction because, unlike substances, it isn’t controlled, except by parents or teachers.
Hi tech parents know that overuse of internet media changes thinking patterns It can mean constant distraction rather than the deep attention required for transferring information from short to long term memory.
Best apps for busy moms Just choose the app that best suits you. Ready for download?
Android apps to control teen’s brain? This’ll never beat the bicycle
Passwords
Hacking through the password jungle: Some are actually worse than just using “password” Anyway, don’t be this guy: “This reader mocked Heartbleed, posted his passwords online. Guess what happened next.”
We could get beyond passwords. But do we want to? One problem with bioscanning is that unique identifiers can change (still unique but different).
Photoshopping
Would the media be safer if government regulated Photoshopping? If, for example, Jay Carney and Clare Shipman are comfortable with a Photoshopped library, impressive illusions are now socially accepted. Who then would be regulated?
Plagiarism
The internet is no friend to plagiarism Contrary to its rep as a garbage dump for ideas, that;s the one form of fakery it is not friendly to.
Policing
Apple vs. the FBI How much do we value privacy vs. government’s stated desire to protect us?
Predictive policing: Have we given up on community policing? Some want police to snoop on social media to identify pre-criminals and create files on them.
Politics
Among words that no longer earn their keep, “fundamentalism” heads the list Religious freedom expert: You can call Osama bin Laden a fundamentalist; you can call [the] Amish fundamentalists, but where does that get you? Their goals and way of life are very, very different.
Astroturf The internet can help the grass roots grow—or lay down astroturf False climates of opinion can be built up through new media.
Civilized world cannot recover its will? The civil liberties we take for granted were won by a Judaeo-Christian culture.
Noble words with insidious new meanings In practice, accountability journalism has often meant open instead of barely concealed partisanship. Increasingly, media refuse to cover both sides of an issue—say, climate change—or even to allow dissenting comments because they claim to already know who is right on the facts.
Is social media creating a “spiral of silence”? Polarizing our society? I don’t think the internet polarizes society. It highlights polarities.
The Sony hack: How the internet changes the balance of power, Part I
White House: North Korea attack was not war but “cybervandalism.”The Sony hack: How the internet changes the balance of power, Part II Hollywood, despite bravado, buckled
The internet does not need policing to enforce social justice Predicted social class does not determine access
How the internet become a haven for tyranny Disinfect our right to be angry about the loss of the civil liberty to complain about aggression.
Do poll results matter in the internet age? Probably not, and it is worth knowing why not.
Does new media make us value democracy less? Maybe, and facing elections and upheavals around North America and Europe, it’s bad news.
Could Google sway an election? If so, how? American psychologist Robert Epstein explains how search engine rankings can be manipulated.
Pornography How internet dating helps to mainstream porn It will be hard to maintain laws against child pornography.
Privacy
There is no such thing as anonymity in social mediaNot when so many sources want the information. (The Truthy project is chilling if you have anything other than “progressive” views)
Apple vs. FBI internet Free internet is at stake Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t.
Beyond the cookie – advertisers’ new high-tech spyware trained on internet users Why are firms doing this? Because internet users evade or erase browser cookies.
Edward Snowden: “When you collect everything, you understand nothing.” Mass spying on citizens “fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state.”
Can there really be a “right to be forgotten”? There really is no “right” to be forgotten any more than there is a “right” to be remembered.
Let’s start asking politicians about internet privacy before they take ground we can’t get back
Is our e-mail private? No. What protects most of us is that our words are lost among the trillions.
Privacy crunch: Apple vs. the FBI How much do we value privacy vs. government’s stated desire to protect us?
Predictive policing: Have we given up on community policing? Some want police to snoop on social media to identify pre-criminals and create files on them.
Privacy fights back It’s worse than we thought. But is Privategrity the answer?
Latest Christmas toy fad: Baby Snitch The doll at least talks and listens to the kid. But who else does?
How much can the internet reveal about us? Instant Checkmate offers very sensitive data, from masses of government databases for a fee.
The internet makes sins public in a way no previous medium easily could.
Privacy See also: Surveillance
Privacy. See also: Safety
R
Radio Why radio, like books, survived the internet The “local effect” saved it.
Relationships
Digital Afterlife: How the Internet Has Changed Mourning and Bereavement Users can post computer-composed messages after death.
Facebook: When digital breakups byte too hard We should resist the temptation to get personal on Facebook in the first place. The algorithm does not know, and the world does not care. Let’s save it for the few who do.
People may betray us, AI can’t The AI program for lonely people is a great listener. As if.
Whoa, Rosie! Twitter is not a family conference! We all have family problems, and let’s all just keep them off the internet.
Religion
Is Pope Francis off base for warning kids against “futile things” on the internet? Not by a long shot.
Pope Francis on new media’s positive side New media do not force us to live in Selfie World; they only make it possible.
The resurrection of the head In general, legacy media explorations of culture today should be treated with considerable skepticism. Its mavens have a hard time imagining that traditional Christianity may thrive long after Terasem is a footnote in a learned dissertation on Silicon Valley culture.
Is there still religious freedom at universities? Not if you go by this story.
Reputation management Staying real in the age of virtual Do we learn about these deceptions in school? Should they? Would it make a difference?
Robotics
Bob the Robot’s TED talk: What robots are and aren’t Research belongs to the world of ideas, and robots belong to the world of things we create in order to develop our ideas.
Robotic caregivers are a bad idea (but not just for the obvious reasons) If we look at it from an economic perspective, the pension money a senior spends on assisted living is not wasted. It is recycled back into the economy as someone else’s salary.
Robotic surgery: Paging Dr. Carebot? At first glance, it sounds impersonal, sterile. But there are pros and cons.
Serious argument: The right to marry a robot This is an argument for the right to marry something that is not human and not a self. Forcing others to recognize one’s machine as a spouse would be a social triumph, of sorts.
Will robots really take over? That depends. It depends on what people can do that machines can’t do.
What is the minimum you must pay an iServebot? “So now, returning to the minimum wage controversy, many people sense rightly that they are stuck. They are not computer geniuses but they feel they should make what their parents made when they worked as the old-fashioned blue collar employees whom the robots are replacing. By contrast, the robot neither needs wages nor feels the lack of them. It is a brand new factor in the very industries that provide the foot soldiers for raise-the-minimum-wage campaigns.”
People seem to be turning against the i[can’t]Carebots—robot caregivers for the elderly Modern medicine has given us the four generation family, good or bad, where grandfather is alive at the same time as his great-grandchildren.
Would you marry an intelligent robot or just stay single? Such scenarios depend on the assumption that a machine can be conscious.
Just what the doctor did not order: The doctorbot The art of medicine is to persuade the patient at risk to help himself heal.
Will the job bot eat your job? It will damage some job markets
Robotics. See also: Automation
S
Safety
A young teen—or even a baby—needs to be on Facebook? For what?
Driving while “intexticated” Social media addiction comes, like other addictions, with a free I-deny-I-have-a-problem package.
See also: Privacy; Security; Surveillance
Science
Fake journals Even a machine can get a degree if no one reads any more Or, as one tech mag put it, “Essay generator can spew out BS, still get you an ‘A'”. And it’s still B.S. And that’s a problem.
Even science journals can be fooled into publishing gibberish. Find out how
Security
No, your internet connection is NOT safe “The internet is very convenient. You and I can find out what we want to know—and so can a whole bunch of other people. Here are three situations that give some idea of the scope
Security, Social security numbers – are they so secure? No, they are not, and you need to know why.
If you think only your bank knows your card number, let us hope you are right. If you think only you know your pin number, let us hope you are right
internet and terror Instead of James Bond-style secrecy, why not shine a spotlight on terror? Using social media?
Security. See also: Passwords
Selfies
Disney world joins attractions banning selfie sticks But this is a civilization issue, not just a safety issue
Does the selfie signal an increase in self-centredness? Yes, if that were possible
Sex. See Dating
Silicon Valley
The resurrection of the head In general, legacy media explorations of culture today should be treated with considerable skepticism. Its mavens have a hard time imagining that traditional Christianity may thrive long after Terasem is a footnote in a learned dissertation on Silicon Valley culture.
Silicon Valley, Tech and social inequality The Silicon Rift Valley—the deep social divides Silicon Valley itself is, overall, a highly unequal society.
Smartphone
Ban the cell phone monster from normal conversation Everywhere we go, people tippy tap devices, paying little attention to the people who surround them.
Can smartphones make children borderline autistic? What about teens? Living online may mean that social cues, skills, and smarts deteriorate.
Should we call it the dumbphone instead? Maybe, if we go by some recent studies
How many kids have smartphones? And what difference does it make?
High school: Where life without smartphones is a form of death? Life online may have later political implications. Many only solve local problems because we cannot escape.
Jumbotron, the smartphone is coming to get you! New tech does not extinguish old art forms. It more often changes their role.
Social justice and social media
Does high tech necessarily lead to grievous inequality, and anyway does it matter? Does the unequal ability to buy a Ferrari really cause much non-self-inflicted suffering?
Human rights #I care #But so what? Will social media help or hurt human rights causes? Moral preening has always been with us. We didn’t used to think o highly of it.
human trafficking and internet, Does the internet aid human trafficking? Yes. It makes everything faster, cheaper, and easier
isolation risk Fido has no android, but he can read faces Fragile students keep pets while their peers tippy tap on palmtops.
The Silicon Rift Valley—the deep social divides Silicon Valley itself is, overall, a highly unequal society.
new media do not help reduce social inequality They may even increase it.
terrorism and social media Jihadi brides: Don’t overlook how new media market cruelty as well as porn Some women were captivated by beheading videos.
Social media
abusive behaviour, Tweet!: Canadian cleared of harassment charges Many people today have a self-image of victimhood that is both impervious to and unrelated to shared facts.
addiction: Portrait of a social media addict … Social media addiction is like any other kind; you spend all your time pursuing an imagined happiness that an addiction can never give.
Nihilism Does modern technology promote pop culture nihilism in fashion and movies?
risks Do you know who you meet on social media? Maybe you should find out.
selfies, Down with the selfie! Let’s be groupies! Cell photos can help us maintain relationships over time and distance.
Why“move fast and break things” doesn’t work in the real world The real world has no back browser button.
See also: Cyberbullying; Etiquette; Fakes; Harassment
Steve Jobs, The unreal, unhealthy world kids can see online That parents may never have heard of. No wonder Steve Jobs was low tech at home.
Surveillance
Edward Snowden Who is Edward Snowden and why should we care about him? Governments monitor the internet to look good, not for our good
Is your telephone company paid to snoop on you? Telephone companies get paid to tell governments about their customers.
Parent surveillance, Is spying on one’s kids, using new software, the best way to keep them safe? It doesn’t beat teaching them critical thinking skills
Predictive policing: Have we given up on community policing? Some want police to snoop on social media to identify pre-criminals and create files on them.
Spyware, Beyond the cookie – advertisers’ new high-tech spyware trained on internet users Why are firms doing this? Because internet users evade or erase browser cookies.
Surveillance. See also: Privacy; Safety
T
Technology
How much of the internet is teen fiction? And how damaging is that?
iThink: How to use new technology like a human being How to stay human when everything around you is an i-something.
Restricting internet use Should we restrict children’s/teens’ internet use? Taiwan is doing so.
Would teens be helped by courses in internet studies? The internet can create holograms but not people
Television
The TV audience is graying fast. What does that mean? It means that there is no longer going to be a “mass audience.”
Terminology
Noble words with insidious new meanings In practice, accountability journalism has often meant open instead of barely concealed partisanship. Increasingly, media refuse to cover both sides of an issue—say, climate change—or even to allow dissenting comments because they claim to already know who is right on the facts.
Terror
Apple vs. FBI internet Free internet is at stake Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t.
internet and terror, Instead of James Bond-style secrecy, why not shine a spotlight on terror?
Using social media?ISIS used murdered journalist’s Facebook page Supporters fear that the pretense that she was still alive was an attempt to ferret out less public dissidents.
Jihadi brides: Don’t overlook how new media market cruelty as well as porn Some women were captivated by beheading videos.
Textbooks
What did students learn before 24/7 distraction was invented? The Ontario Readers First Book (1923-1938) taught self-respect, not self-esteem.
Texting
Driving while “intexticated”: Social media addiction comes, like other addictions, with a free I-deny-I-have-a-problem package.
Print media are now officially a coffee table item Old media rarely die out altogether. They survive as period pieces and collectors’ items.
RSIs: Live to text? Well, it’s your neck … If our index fingers are getting far more exercise than our legs, we are not living healthy.
“Sexting” Study: Underage sexting is common but risks child porn law charges The Anthony Weiner scandal would be instructive, if only one can get the kids to stop giggling.
Uber taxi service: Social media is a frontier, but NOT a free-for-all As rising star taxi company Uber discovers
Traditional media
Will our elders be left behind with dying media? Legacy media are losing the ability to provide serious news
Where does the decline of traditional media leave readers? Today’s censorship isn’t the church saying we mustn’t read or think that; it’s TV types telling us it isn’t cool. That’s far more effective for shutting down thought
Radio More good news: Why radio, like books, survived the internet
The “local effect” saved it.Religion Are mainstream media prejudiced against God?
Are they the “Pravdas” of a supposedly free world?The slow death of traditional media I left a proposed comfortable life in the academy to be a journalist. But times change.
Transhumanism
At least one reason why transhumanism will not translate into reality The future that the futurists predict is in the past.
Trolls
If the internet is a well-travelled sea, then internet trolls are its brigands Trolls can potentially destroy reputations and careers other than their own.
Russia’s amazing troll farm Welcome to the Russian troll house. Now flee!
Tweet this!: Twitter’s value is way down Facebook, perhaps more human, is doing very well indeed.
Twitter is losing influence? It’s not who is saying it; it’s who listens.
Twitter vs. religious conservatives? Enforcing rules against hate speech selectively is worse than not enforcing them at all.
Whoa, Rosie! Twitter is not a family conference! We all have family problems, and let’s all just keep them off the internet.
UV
Uber
Is Uber just a step toward self-driving cars? Maybe. But for most of its existence, the automobile has stood for personal independence.
Social media is a frontier, but NOT a free-for-all As rising star taxi company Uber discovers
University
MOOCs: Is free higher ed help, hype, or havoc? The galloping cost of university is thought to be one driver of MOOCs’ popularity.
Should we or someone we love go into debt for university? Let’s look at some decision factors.
Video games
Are video games dangerous for kids? Maybe, but it depends what they supplant
What would the kid be doing otherwise?Playing video games is a road to poverty Entertainment does not equal computer knowledge
Video games are not taking over your kid’s brain. What’s happening is more conventional: He is daydreaming instead of learning.
Virtual reality Can high tech recreate destroyed treasures? Cultural treasures throughout the Middle East are in danger from Islamist fanatics.
WXYZ
Wikipedia
How Wikipedia can turn fiction into fact Once enough canards are in circulation, entire fictional scenarios can be created that are difficult to confute because they appear to be well-sourced via constant repetition.
Meet the Seven Deadly Sins Actually, I think that “Wikipedia is my library” should be the new definition of sloth.
Writing for the internet is like writing on water The internet may be forever; our pages are not.
Yik Yak, digital dorm room or cyberbullying? Words on social media are stripped of voice and context.
YouTube? Understanding YouTube YouTube is better than paying for private videography, if you have a message to get out.