WeChat: From Medium to Mediator

China’s omnipresent app regulates much of society. Will it be a blueprint or cautionary tale?

By Chris Neels | January 22, 2020 | Culture, Economics, Government, Media, Policing, Privacy, Society | Beijing, Cashless, Censorship, China, Cybernetics, Dissent, Economics, Free Speech, Freedom, Information, Mediation, Metadata, News, QR Codes, Ride Hailing, surveillance, Tracking, Virtualization, WeChat

Read more  

Google Becomes Evil

Counter to its positive mythology, Google manipulates search results to suit its own corporate purposes, quashing free access to information on the Web.

By Tom Valovic | October 16, 2019 | Ethics, Journalism, Media, Privacy, Society | Algorithms, Alternative Voices, AlterNet, Carey Gillam, Censorship, Control, Disinformation, Filtering, Fraud, Google, Harrassment, Information, Mercola.com, Monopoly, Monsanto, Search Engine, The Guardian, YMYL

Read more  

Podcast #27: Robert Lustig on Biochemistry and Health

Author and endocrinologist Robert Lustig explains the neurochemical difference between happiness and pleasure and how it’s been exploited to make so many of us fat, addicted, and depressed. Then, he reminds us how to reclaim our health.

By Mo Lotman | February 27, 2019 | Cognition, Environment, Family, Food, Health, Medicine, Neurology, Podcasts, Well-Being | Academia, Addiction, Adolescence, Alcohol, Amino Acids, Aristotle, ATP, Availability, Behavior, Biochemistry, Caffiene, Calories, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Cavities, Cell Death, Child Development, Chronic Metabolic Disease, Chronic Renal Disease, Clinicians, Cocaine, Computers, Connection, Connectivity, Contentment, Contribute, Coping, Cortisol, Dementia, Dentistry, Depression, Diabetes, Diet, Dieticians, Doctors, Dopamine, Drugs, Dyslipidemia, Endocrinology, Enjoyment, Environment, Exercise, Exposure, Facebook, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Flow, Food, Food System, Fructose, Giving, Glucose, Happiness, Health Care, Heroin, Hypertension, Hypothalamus, Information, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Marketing, Metabolic Syndrome, Metabolism, Mindfulness, Mirror Neurons, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Money, Multitasking, music, Myelin, Neurons, Neurotransmitters, Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, Obesity, OCD, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Opioids, Peer Pressure, Personal Responsibility, Philanthropy, Pleasure, Polycystic Ovarian Disease, Prefrontal Cortex, Processed Food, Profit, Propaganda, Quantification, Refining, Regulation, Religion, Reward, Sales, Seizures, Seratonin, Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, Social Security, Stimulation, Substance Abuse, Substances, Sugar, Suicide, Taking, Taylorism, Technology, Tolerance, Tryptophane, Utilitarianism

Read more  

Podcast #26: Adam Gazzaley on Our Distracted Minds

Neurologist Adam Gazzaley discusses how the brain’s attentional system functions–or doesn’t–when buffeted by digital distraction.

By Mo Lotman | February 6, 2019 | Cognition, Health, Neurology, Podcasts, Psychology, Well-Being | ADHD, Aging, Anxiety, Attending, Attention, Attention Deficit, Boredom, Cognition, Concentration, Depression, Digital Devices, Distraction, Education, Empathy, Enhancement, Exercise, Filtering, Focus, Goals, Habit, Ignoring, Information, Information Foraging Theory, Interference, Marginal Value Theorem, Medicine, Meditation, Memory, Metacognition, Monotasking, Multitasking, Nature, Neurology, Perception, Plasticity, Prefrontal Cortex, Prescribable Video Game Treatment, Psychology, Smartphones, Suppression, The Brain, Therapy, Video Games

Read more  

iPhone, Therefore I Am

Once we’re all parroting back Wikipedia entries to each other, what unique knowledge or wisdom do we have to offer?

By Isabel Sterne | March 28, 2018 | Cognition, Culture, Identity, Knowledge, Relationships | Efficiency, External Memory, Google, GPS, Individuality, Information, Knowledge, Memory, Overconfidence, Phaedrus, Plato, Recall, Smartphones, Socrates, Wisdom

Read more  

The Problems of Prediction, Part 2

Our overconfidence in our predictive abilities can be traced to the simple fact that the universe is infinitely complex.

By David A. J. Reynolds | February 21, 2018 | Cognition, Economics, Government, Philosophy, Prediction, Society | Brexit, Britain, Certainty, Comprehension, Cosmology, Data, Economics, Elections, Error, Forecasting, Foresight, Freakonomics, Genetic Engineering, Hanna Arendt, Hubris, Ignorance, Infinity, Information, Knowledge, Limitations, Manipulations, Models, Neuroscience, Over-confidence, Philip Tetlock, Polling, Prediction, Reality, Statistics, Stephen Dubner, The Brain, The Universe, Truth, UK, Understanding, Unknowns, Unpredictability, US

Read more  

The Problems of Prediction, Part 1

Our technological mindset makes us more inclined to predict and gather ever-more data in service of prediction. We misunderstand the information we have, can’t know the information we don’t have, and yet we are more confident than ever.

By David A. J. Reynolds | January 24, 2018 | Economics, Government, Philosophy, Prediction, Society | Abstraction, Alfred North Whitehead, Belief, Britain, Comprehension, Data, Elites, Error, EU, Euro, Experts, Fallacies, Forecasting, Hubris, Information, Knowledge, Limitations, Michael Gove, Nassim Taleb, Over-confidence, Paul Slovic, Philip Tetlock, Prediction, Statistics, Truth, Understanding, Unknowns

Read more  

Worried About Internet Privacy? Visit Your Local Librarian

Librarians have historically taken strong stances on protecting the privacy of patrons. Now, some of them are becoming valuable assets in the fight against online surveillance.

By Lucy Uprichard | May 24, 2017 | Education, Knowledge, Privacy, Society | Abuse of Power, ALA, Alison Macrina, Counter-terrorism, CUNY Graduate Center, Data Collection, Information, ISPs, Law Enforcement, Librarians, Libraries, Library Freedom Project, NSA, Privacy, Security, Social Media, surveillance, Tracking, World War II

Read more