For 12 years, the MTV reality series “Catfish” has traveled the U.S., presenting hundreds of intimate snapshots of what can go wrong when the heart mixes with technology.
When something real happened, Americans found a way to pay attention. [O]n February 24, [when] the invasion began, American social networks, where the culture war normally rages ceaselessly, over COVID policies, school curricula, trans athletes, and more, suddenly went quiet.
The world gained more details about Sen. Ted Cruz's jaunt to Cancun during his state's power crisis and weather emergency via his wife's group text chain. Someone on the chain leaked some damning information, leading us to explore this "most intimate and sacred forms of communications."
As it continues to be the gatekeeper for more than 2 billion active users’ data, one has to wonder: What if we, and not Facebook, were the ones in the digital driving seat? What if we bought out social media platforms from the Zuckerbergs of the world and owned them ourselves, or simply demanded to know how our data is being used? What if we even owned and could sell our data for personal profit, treating it as an income stream, instead of handing it to tech firms?
The one category among these that feels like a genuine trend—one not bolstered by Apple’s own apps or APIs—is mental health and mindfulness. As its Editor’s Pick in this category—and, on top of that, its App of the Year—Apple selected Calm. The app, which debuted in 2012, includes guided meditations ranging in time from three to 25 minutes, “Sleep Stories” to wind you down at the end of the day, breathing exercises, and music selections to help you relax, focus, or sleep.
Facebook, Google and Twitter disclosed more about Russian agents’ use of their platforms in the 2016 election as they prepare for hearings before Congress.
"Twitter is making the news dumber. The service is insidery and clubby. It exacerbates groupthink. It prizes pundit-ready quips over substantive debate, and it tends to elevate the silly over the serious — for several sleepless hours this week it was captivated by “covfefe,” which was essentially a brouhaha over a typo."
Amid an opioid epidemic, the rise of deadly synthetic drugs and the widening legalization of marijuana, a curious bright spot has emerged in the youth drug culture: American teenagers are growing less likely to try or regularly use drugs, including alcohol.
With minor fits and starts, the trend has been building for a decade, with no clear understanding as to why. Some experts theorize that falling cigarette-smoking rates are cutting into a key gateway to drugs, or that antidrug education campaigns, long a largely failed enterprise, have finally taken hold.
But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?
"Regular people need to be aware that through almost no attempt of their own, their lives could just suddenly blow up and become fodder for public consumption and judgment,” Kate Lindsay, writer of the digital culture newsletter Embedded, said in an interview.
One of the largest instances of mass digital snitching in history took place following the Capitol riots on January 6, when internet users began combing through the astoundingly large amount of photo and video evidence generated by the event in order to identify those who’d stormed the Capitol.
"Say you go out with a dude. It’s great or okay. You hook up. That’s great or okay. You never talk again. Eight-hundred miles and seven years later, they’re gone forever, right? Or so we thought till last summer, when Instagram Stories debuted..."
Over the next year, we’ll start spending less time on Facebook. Those of us who used it to catch up on the news will find less of it to read. We’ll watch fewer videos, and we’ll see fewer advertisements. In theory, Facebook will make less money off us — or, at least, the rate at which it makes more and more money off us will slow.
Had you presented this scenario to Facebook executives a year ago, it would have been cause for alarm: evidence that something had gone deeply wrong on the platform, and a situation that called for an immediate solution. And yet as of today, it’s the company’s stated ambition: Facebook wants to shrink.
Twitter's experiment with doubling the maximum tweet length was apparently a success. The social network is expanding support for 280-character tweets to all users.
After a break up, intimate images possessed by a vindictive ex can end up online. Facebook is trying to address a uniquely modern and pernicious form of harassment, which is often but not exclusively aimed at women.
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