Tag Archives: Facebook

Pseudonymity Makes People More Honest

There is a misconception that anonymity on the internet inevitably leads to toxicity. But pre-Facebook and social media, most people on the internet were anonymous. Or more precisely, they were pseudonymous, meaning they used a continuous username and avatar, but that name/image was not tied to their real-life identity. In the 1990s and early 2000s it seemed absurd to reveal your real name/face online. Yet under that pseudonymous internet, on average, people were more honest and cordial than they are today when everyone posts under their real names. Contrary to intuition, there was less toxicity when more people were anonymous.

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How to Expand Your Attention Span

Many people today claim they don’t have the attention span, patience, or self-discipline to read dense books and long-form content. That is because they have become too accustomed to the quick short-form hyperactive content on the internet like tweets, Instagram stories, YouTube videos, memes, and TikToks. In this post, I wrote about breaking my Twitter addiction and focusing my efforts and time on reading books. I suggested Twitter and social media are like drugs in that they change your brain chemistry. That is not hyperbole. Social media changes your brain by shortening your attention span.

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My Twitter Detox

I am a recovering Twitter junkie. I used to be addicted to the social media network—that is addicted to reading others’ tweets as opposed to tweeting myself. When I first joined Twitter in 2009 I would only read my timeline. I didn’t tweet anything myself until much later. At first I only followed a couple dozen people, but over time the number of people I followed grew and grew. I don’t know if it was some kind of obsessive compulsive trait of mine, but I felt a need to read every tweet in my timeline. When I woke up in the morning I’d scroll back through all the tweets I missed the previous night. Such a practice was manageable then because I wasn’t following too many people (in the dozens), and those I followed didn’t tweet too often.

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Recommendation Algorithms Rule Your Life

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Cultural critics used to be essential curators of music, movies, books, and art. When there were only a couple of newspapers or radio stations or TV stations, the select few professional critics had enormous power in telling the public which art they should pay attention to. Then came the internet and everything changed. With blogs, message boards, and podcasts, anybody could become a critic. Both the creation and critique of art became more democratic. Traditional critics became less important. People preferred to take recommendations from like-minded people in their specific cultural niche. This gave real cultural power to bloggers and amateur critics on the internet who developed a following. Continue reading

Data: The New Most Valuable Resource

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With the recent Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal there’s been a lot of concern over, not just Facebook, but all tech companies and the massive amount of personal data they collect from their users. Most people don’t realize how much personal data they willingly relinquish to tech companies in exchange for their services. Nor do people realize just how valuable their personal data is. Continue reading