As news of the terrorist attacks in Paris spread through social media, responses followed a pattern I’ve come to know well. First, shock and grief. Friends and followers share video and pictures that are almost pornographic in their deracinated intensity. The images appear with no context, and we see only running, screaming, guns, and blood. … Continue reading »
social media
Cyberphysical democracy: online platforms and offline action
“The more digital the world becomes, the more appetite people have for real things.” (Alan Rusbriger of The Guardian, in a NY Times Magazine interview, March 7, 2014) New platforms for civic engagement are leveraging the power of the Internet to bring constituents’ opinions to the doorstep of the politicians who represent them. The field … Continue reading »
Does technology really cut us off from other people?
Smarthphones and social media are changing our daily lives and our society. It’s now normal to see two people at a dinner table fiddling with their phones—and why not? They probably first met each other through their phones, on a dating site like OKCupid. But are digital devices and social media disconnecting us from the … Continue reading »
Where to find love on Facebook
This piece was co-authored with Emiliana Simon-Thomas. What’s the most popular emotion in the world? Well, on Facebook at least, the answer is clear: It’s love. How do we know that? Because the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center worked with Facebook to develop a new set of animated emoticons to express a broad range … Continue reading »
Folktales of the policy elites
In the new world of blogs and tweets and breaking-news bulletins flashing across billions of big, medium, and small screens, we are learning that one of the down sides of instant connection is that false news can in a flash go from being an off-hand comment to a globally recognized “fact.” (Consider the person falsely … Continue reading »
Tablet and smartphone boot camp for middle-school parents
Every day I read something that leads me to believe that tech devices are dramatically affecting our kids’ normal social, sexual, intellectual, and emotional development. What I’m most amazed by, frankly, is how uninvolved we parents tend to be in the online lives of our middle schoolers. Our tweeners tend to seem much more savvy … Continue reading »
New media and old manifestations
It appears that Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the protesters clogging up the downtowns of Turkish cities who are agitating against him agree on something. Erdogan recently decried “a menace that is called Twitter . . . . The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the … Continue reading »
The Internet and global justice 2.0
Recent developments in technology — and a UN Human Rights Council Resolution — highlight the growing potential of social media’s role in international justice. Tools for citizens to report or document serious crimes are increasingly available and easy for non-specialists to deploy. The seminal crowdsourcing platform Ushahidi, created during the post-election violence in Kenya in … Continue reading »
How to keep your child safe (and happy) online, part 1
Like a lot of parents, I’ve been struck by how active — though not savvy — my kids and their friends are with social media. It’s a little like we’ve given our kids keys to a new car and said, “Have fun! Be safe!” without actually teaching them to drive. Will they crash? My kids’ … Continue reading »
Social media reading list: Christakis and Fowler, Connected
[ Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives is part of the 2011 Summer Reading List at UC Berkeley. The theme this year is “Social Media.”] A couple of years ago, social scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler got a lot of media attention for new research suggesting that people … Continue reading »