Social Media Archives | The Technoskeptic

Curbing Our Tech Obsession: What, Why, & How

Young people are obsessively checking their phones more every year. Here are some reasons why, and strategies to regain control.

By Larry Rosen | January 30, 2019 | Media, Neurology, Psychology, Relationships, Society, Well-Being | Addiction, Alerts, Android, Anxiety, Apple, Attention, Blue Light, Boredom, Circadian Rhythm, Cues, Depression, Digital Media, Digital Wellness, Distracted Driving, Distraction, FOMO, Google, Information Foraging Theory, Marketing, Metacognition, Nir Eyal, Nomophobia, Obsession, OCD, Psychology, Sleep, Smartphones, Social Media, Social Obligation, Teens, Tim Wu, Young Adults

What Facebook Knows

We’ve long known Facebook is selling our data to advertisers in a vague sense; now we can see what they’re hoarding and who’s buying.

By Art Keller | August 21, 2018 | Advertising, Economics, Ethics, Media, Privacy | Advertisers, Advertising, Alec Sears, Brad Bauer, Browser Fingerprint, Browser Sniffing, Cambridge Analytica, Compass, Credit Agencies, Dan Nainan, Data, Data Brokers, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Jessica Scherlag, Logan Abbott, Pete Zaborsky, Privacy Badger, Social Media, Spear-Phishing, surveillance

Podcast #18: Catherine Steiner-Adair on Tech and Child Development

Catherine Steiner-Adair is a clinical psychologist whose empathic 2013 book The Big Disconnect warned us about the impacts of digital tech on child development and family relationships. She's been on a non-stop speaking tour ever since.

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By Mo Lotman | May 16, 2018 | Cognition, Education, Family, Health, Identity, Podcasts, Psychology, Relationships, Society, Well-Being | Anxiety, Apps, Attachment, Bonding, Boredom, Childhood Development, Creativity, Cyberbullying, Depression, Disconnection, Education, Exercise, Families, Gaming, Impulse Control, Laptops, Learning, Motor Skills, Obesity, Overstimulation, Parents, Permanence, Play, Porn, Quiet, Schools, Sexting, Shaming, smart phones, Social Media, Suicide, Tablets

He Started #DeleteFacebook… Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago, three artists created a controversial site to make a statement about Facebook’s practices. The company sued and accused them of scraping data. Oh, the irony.

By Art Keller | April 11, 2018 | Culture, Ethics, Law, Media, Privacy | Advertising, Apps, Art, Bits of Freedom, Cambridge Analytica, Chris Wylie, Congress, Danja Vasiliev, Dark Patterns, Data Scraping, Data-Mining, Deleting Accounts, Developers, Digital Art, Edward Snowden, EFF, Facebook, Fraud, Gordan Savicic, Manipulation, Mark Zuckerberg, Moddr, Privacy, Privacy Zuckering, Social Commentary, Social Media, Tobias Leingruber, Twitter, Walter Langelaar, Web Suicide Machine

Is Democracy Threatened by Chatbots?

Chatbots are becoming more sophisticated both in their ability to process language and gauge emotion. As social media increasingly influences our news and beliefs, this could be a big problem.

By Emily Ludolf | January 31, 2018 | Artificial Intelligence, Government, Journalism, Knowledge, Politics, Psychology, Security, Society | AI, Bias, Chatbots, Customer Service, Cyberbullying, Democracy, Elections, Fake News, Filter Bubble, Influence, Machine Learning, Microsoft, Natural Language Processing, News, NLP, Opinion, Oxford, Profiling, Propaganda, Psychiatry, Psychology, Russia, Social Media, Targeting, Tay, Therapy, Trolling, Twitter

Podcast #15: David Greenfield on Internet Addiction

Psychiatrist, professor, and author David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction, was one of the first medical professionals to recognize and study the addictive qualities of the Internet. He explains what we know, what it means, and what can be done.

By Mo Lotman | January 17, 2018 | Cognition, Family, Health, Neurology, Podcasts, Psychology, Society, Well-Being | Addiction, Alienation, Behavior, Boot Camps, Boredom, China, Community, Creativity, Detox, Distracted Driving, Dopamine, DSM, Facebook, Food, Gambling, Gaming, Health Care, Heroin, Humanity, Impulse Control, Inequality, Internet, Medicine, Public Space, Self-Medication, Sex, smart phones, Social Disconnection, Social Media, Teens, Unhappiness, Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedule, Variable Reward, Video Games

Literary Twitter: Marketing, Shaming, & Censorship in the World of Publishing

Twitter has become deeply integrated into the literary world, creating a vastly different dynamic between authors and readers.

By Lucy Uprichard | December 6, 2017 | Community, Culture, Media, Publishing | Agents, Amazon, Bestseller Lists, Bestsellers, Celeste Ng, Censorship, Criticism, Cyberbullying, Donna Grant, Engagement, Fiction, Followers, Goodreads, Handbook for Mortals, Harlequin Teen, Jonathan Franzen, Lani Sarem, Laurie Forest, Literary Agents, Literary Criticism, Literary Twitter, Literature, Marketing, Pressure, Publishers, Publishing, Rebekah Fitzsimmons, relationships, Sarah Schulman, Self-Promotion, Shaming, Social Media, The Black Witch, The New York Times, Twitter, Valerie Peterson, Virginia DeBerry, Young Adult, Zadie Smith

New Digital Fakery May Make Truth Even More Elusive

Software now in development makes it easy to fabricate audio and video of real people, literally putting words in their mouths.

By Samantha Maxwell | November 1, 2017 | Ethics, Journalism, Media, Politics | Adobe, Comet Ping Pong, Donald Trump, Face2Face, Facebook, Fake News, Fakery, Filter Bubble, Forgery, Hillary Clinton, Journalism, Lyrebird, Media, Mimicry, Misinformation, Opinion, PhotoShop, Pizzagate, Politicians, Social Media, The Emily Project, Truth, Twitter, VoCo

Art Appreciation Under Pressure: The Evolution of Evaluation

With endless feeds and ubiquitous ratings, connecting with a work of art online in an autonomous, meaningful way has become difficult.

By Adam Balivet | October 18, 2017 | Culture, Economics, Media, Philosophy | Action, Aldous Huxley, Art, Art Appreciation, Contemplation, Culture, Dislike, Drives, Evaluation, Facebook, Film, Friedrich Nietzsche, Instagram, Interpretation, Judgment, Language, Like, Literature, Malcolm Lowry, Meaning, music, Photography, Playlists, Pressure, Social Media, Songs, Spotify, Understanding

Want to Borrow Money? Then Let a Credit Startup Read Your Email

New online lenders promise funds for previously-ignored groups. The catch? Borrowers have to allow them to spy on everything they do and everyone they associate with.

By Tom O'Connell | October 4, 2017 | Economics, Ethics, Privacy | Algorithms, Banks, Big Data, Credit, Credit Industry, EFF, Email, Emerging Markets, Financial Services, Investment, Lenddo, Lending, Loans, Privacy, Social Media, Social-Media Credit, Spying, surveillance, Third World

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