Communications Major

TikTokkers are filming private conversations and posting them online. This has potential consequences.

I don't know where to post: there are too many social platforms, and the old giants are dying. The age of social media is splintering

The report by Dr. Vivek Murthy cited a “profound risk of harm” to adolescent mental health and urged families to set limits and governments to set tougher standards for use.

A wave of teenagers who developed tics during the pandemic has receded, illustrating the powerful influence of stress on the body and the resilience of adolescents

New start-ups and other social platforms sense opportunity as Twitter grapples with changes from Elon Musk, its new owner.

. . . and for staying

Sharing photos may subtly change what — and how — we remember.

Tech’s big shots have learned again and again that free speech isn’t so simple. What happens when Mr. Musk owns Twitter?

This is the first war that will be covered on TikTok by super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones, so acts of brutality will be documented and broadcast worldwide without any editors or filters. On the first day of the war, we saw invading Russian tank units unexpectedly being exposed by Google maps, because Google wanted to alert drivers that the Russian armor was causing traffic jams.

Still relevant. Eight ways to use Facebook for the good of your sanity and our humanity.

"What these technologies do best is remind us of what we’re not doing: who’s hanging out without us, who’s working more than us, what news we’re not reading. They refuse to allow our consciousness off the hook, in order to do the essential, protective, regenerative work of sublimating and repressing. Instead, they provide the opposite: a nonstop barrage of notifications and reminders and interactions. They bring life to the forefront, constantly, so that we can’t ignore it. They’re not a respite from work—or, as promised, a way to optimize your work. They’re just more work. And six months into a society-throttling pandemic, they’re more inescapable than ever."

If social media is your résumé, DM is your inbox.

"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.

It's been one year since Elon Musk purchased Twitter. And it has not been a good year.

 

Dozens of studies of posts on X from multiple organizations have shown a similar trend: an increase in harmful content during Mr. Musk’s tenure.

Threads, from Meta, looks and feels like Twitter -- without the hate (so far).

The way we talk about relationships has drastically changed in recent years, especially online. Here is a glossary of some of the most popular words and phrases you should know

Twitter’s first three months under the empire of Elon Musk. Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use it for their own ends — then one made himself the CEO

Its decline is about not just a loss of relevance, but a capitulation to a new era of “performance” media, in which we create online primarily to reach people we don’t know instead of the people we do. 

A new study co-authored by Wharton Deputy Dean Nancy Rothbard explores the dilemma of digital etiquette for employees who befriend co-workers and managers online.…Read More

Instagram sucks now. What was once a repository for photos of friends and family is now a junkyard stuffed with knockoff TikToks known as “Reels.”

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. 

Documents that a whistle-blower, Frances Haugen, provided to The Wall Street Journal showed that Instagram made body-image issues worse for one in three teenage girls.

Listening in:

 

Clubhouse, the invitation-only audio social network, is compelling. It's only 11 months old, but it already has some very grown-up problems.

"In her first book, “Lurking,” Joanne McNeil charts the history of the internet through the experiences of the users. These are not necessarily the same as people. Conflating the two, McNeil explains, “hides the ‘existence of two classes of people — developers and users,’” as the artist Olia Lialina has put it.

 

The difference: Developers build and shape the online experiences that users run around in like rats in a maze. Users make their way through the vast web trying to fulfill certain essential desires. McNeil separates these behaviors — searching, activism at the expense of safety, privacy, identity, community, anonymity and visibility — into chapters, each discussing the platforms and websites that serve them.

 

McNeil maps out the history of the web, from the first bulletin boards, to the early days of blogging, to the emergence of social platforms like Friendster and eventually to the online world we live in today, dominated by tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon.