Kranzberg's First Law: Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral

Kranzberg's First Law is my single most important take-away from this semester. We've taken on a lot of complex issues dealing with technology and mass communication, and I've learned that there is a whole lot more gray area than black and white. Technology is advancing more rapidly than we can keep up, and we're learning as we go along. Too often people try to make sweeping generalizations about technology and the effect it's all having on us, but the reality is never that simple. I've learned to think deeper about the far-reaching impact technology is having on our lives and to always consider both sides of the coin. Sure, Tinder might lead to shallow hook-ups and selfies might make us more narcissistic, but they're also platforms for connecting with new people and expressing ourselves in ways we couldn't have before.

In the next 15 years, biotechnology will provide countless new ways for people to manage their health and fight infection. Tiny bugs could be implanted in our bodies and detect pathogens long before people would have discovered them otherwise, accelerating the treatment process and prolonging life. But there will also be people who can't afford biotechnology to constantly monitor their glucose levels or heart condition. Advances in health care will likely widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, requiring that we consider more than ever the ethical implications of our decisions.

The internet has made possible things we never could have achieved before. It lets us connect with like-minded people across the world. It gives us an outlet for artistic expression and infinite sources of information. We have a wealth of resources at our fingertips, and we've never been more empowered or more capable. But there's also a downside. We might be sacrificing our deeper connections in real life for more fleeting, superficial ones on the web. The constant presence of our iPhones might be pulling us away from truly living in the moment. And some argue we're developing broader, shallower pools of knowledge as our attention is increasingly divided between a flock of competing sources. There are incredible benefits to technology, but they don't come without dangers.

I've learned that with tech, we don't always win and we don't always lose. And sometimes it creates both winners and losers. Technology gives us the tools, but what people choose to do with them, and who controls them, are much more important than the technology itself.

Facebook isn't going anywhere, whether you like it or not.

There has been a lot of speculation about what the future holds for Facebook after the social media giant turn ten years old earlier this year. Some people think it's starting to lose its "cool" and is destined for a similar fate to that of Myspace. A study by Princeton researchers published in January forecasted Facebook's "impending doom" by comparing its growth curve to that of an infectious disease, predicting that it will lose 80 percent of its users by 2017. It's true-- there are tons of newer, hipper social media companies that have had massive success, like the photo-sharing app Instagram (which is actually owned by Facebook) and the popular direct-messaging app Snapchat. But is Facebook really headed on a crash course to self-destruction? I don't think so.

We may not like Facebook, but we need it. Zuckerberg has created a social media empire that has reached the point of ubiquity, boasting over a billion users worldwide. In the U.S., 57 percent of all adults and 73 percent of people ages 12-17 have a Facebook account. No other social media platform is used by such a majority of the population. If you meet someone new on campus or while vacationing in a foreign country, it's an almost-guarantee you'll be able to find them on Facebook and stay in touch. Even if it's no longer "cool," we need it more than we realize.

Zuckerberg directly addressed people's concerns that Facebook was losing its cool in an interview he gave to The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, James Bennet. "Maybe electricity was cool when it first came out," he said. "The real question you want to track at that point is: Are fewer people turning on their lights because it's less cool?"

Zuckerberg is very open about the fact that staying "cool" was never his goal for Facebook. It doesn't need to be cool. He just wants it to be something you can't live without. And with a rock-solid user base in the U.S. and a rapidly-expanding base globally, Zuckerberg is well on his way to achieving that goal. And now that Facebook has reached the stage of dominance, it can afford to experiment with new, creative ways to transform itself and become more profitable.

Part of Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook's future is to deconstruct it into a series of separate mobile apps, each with a separate purpose. His goal is to move away from the all-in-one Facebook platform we've become accustomed to, in favor of unique experiences that will keep users more engaged and draw in more ad revenue. The New York Times article "The Future of Facebook May Not Say Facebook" explores this new model that Zuckerberg calls Creative Labs, which seeks to unbundle Facebook into separate apps that may not even require a Facebook account to use. Zuckerberg said separate apps are simpler and easier to use, creating a more efficient and enjoyable experience for users.

But some question-- will it work? Facebook Paper, a news-sharing platform, was introduced with a lot of hype but failed to deliver the popularity that many predicted. Facebook Messenger had even less success, but as Facebook recently announced, users will soon have no choice but to download Messenger to chat directly with their friends. The company is now forcing users to download Messenger by removing traditional messaging capabilities from its main Facebook app. It promises users it will make their experience more enjoyable, but a lot of people think it's a mistake. After all, nobody likes being told what to do.

Even so, I don't think Zuckerberg has any reason to sweat. The simple fact is, unless we have the cell phone numbers of all the people we want to stay in contact with, Facebook will always be our next-best option. If we're planning an event or organizing meetings for a group project, there is no surer platform for getting in touch with everyone we need to reach. The network effects of Facebook render it a social necessity in today's world, and it's not going to die out because no other company is in any position to replace it. We may not like what Zuckerberg is doing, but it doesn't matter-- We have no choice but to go with the flow. And now that Zuckerberg has his grip on us, he has full reign to experiment with new ideas to generate larger amounts of revenue. Pretty smart, huh?

Electricity, like Facebook, is no longer cool--But that doesn't mean we'll stop using it.

When tech wins, who loses?

Advances in technology have revolutionized the ways we get our information and communicate with each other. Thanks to my iPhone, I have a constant stream of live news at my fingertips, I can instantly reply to emails on the go, and I can share photos with one tap of the screen. I use social media to form connections with potential employers and to develop a personal brand. Technology helps me feel connected to the many communities I've become part of, and I can't fathom a time when I knew how to live without my iPhone.

But some people do have to live without an iPhone, or a smartphone at all for that matter. When it comes to new technology, the issue of who has access raises some serious ethical dilemmas.  All the functions of technology I've become reliant on in daily life are still unavailable to a significant portion of the population. Pew's latest data on mobile technology reveals that only 58 percent of Americans own a smartphone, and 10 percent don't own a cell phone at all. The ubiquity of iPhones on UNC's campus makes people who don't have smartphones seem like a tiny minority, but that doesn't mirror the broader American population.

Access to technology is not a luxury created equal, and I think it's something a lot of people can take for granted. Access to technology means access to more information, which means more power and influence.

A piece published by Santa Clara University's center for ethics lays out four conditions for information access:

1. Knowing that the information or information service is available.
2. Owning the equipment to connect to the information source.
3. Gaining access to the information service.
4. Knowing how to operate the necessary hardware and software (computer literacy).

In other words, even if every person in America was given a free smartphone, not everyone would know how to use it or be able to afford a plan to stay constantly connected to the internet. And some people may not even be aware of what kind of technological tools are out there. Access is about more than just possessing the hardware.

But what happens when only some people can afford access to new technology? It means those people get to reap its benefits, while the ones who can't afford it continue to fall farther behind the curve. This is the "technology gap." The people with access to the best technology tend to be more educated and wealthier, and the people with the least access tend to fall much lower on the socioeconomic scale. The people with access use tech to advance even higher in society, leveraging the available tools to build powerful networks and to stay informed. And owning most of the technology means having the most control over technology, so these people get to decide how it should be used and regulated, for better or for worse. People with less access are probably less likely to educate themselves over concerns like privacy, making them more vulnerable to exploitation by marketers and data-trackers when they do use it.

More and more people are getting access to smartphones, but a technological gap remains, and it has real implications for the socioeconomic gap. Technology provides infinite channels and opportunities. The people who can't afford to get their hands on it, or who don't know how to use it, will struggle to achieve upward mobility in a world where tech is becoming increasingly necessary.

It's a problem with no easy solution. While nobody can guarantee that everybody has a smartphone, there are some things we can do to alleviate the technology gap. We can work to maintain transparency and inform the public about their rights and risks online. We can shape the future of how our world is connected to the web. IT developers are coming up with new products and services right now to bring the web to everyone, and a range of interests are battling for control over that process. We can support the interests that will level the playing field instead of concentrating power into the hands of a few.

The ethical concerns surrounding access to technology are about much more than the technology itself, but rather how it's used and whose hands it's placed in.

Is disaster porn ruining quality journalism?

salon.com

The Boston bombing, the missing Malaysian airliner, a seemingly endless string of political scandals from Bridgegate to Rob Ford smoking crack...

These are the stories that dominate our news feeds. Headline after headline reels us in with the allure of breaking details and juicy exclusives. But is our news suffering?

Today one of my classmates led a discussion about the problem of "disaster porn," the product of news outlets sensationalizing stories to stand out in an overcrowded market.One online columnist compared the national coverage of the Boston bombing to that of a sporting event, citing the constant reel of graphic imagery and the intense focus on individual victims. He wrote, "I expect to hear an anchor say, “Our continuing coverage of this latest tragedy is being brought to you by the new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos!” And in news outlets' constant effort to provide us with the latest and greatest, quality journalism may be the biggest casualty.

The internet and social media have given us access to 24/7 news coverage, and more sources than ever compete for our attention. Media outlets focus on the most violent details of tragedies instead of giving us the full picture, making us less informed if we rely solely on the mainstream media. Speed is prioritized over responsible fact-checking, which can cause misinformation to proliferate. Sometimes it seems like news outlets are there to entertain more than inform, placing important worldwide events on the back burner in favor of Jimmy Kimmel's Sochi wolf prank or Miley's twerk at the VMAs.

But who's to blame? The competing news outlets, or the public's insatiable desire to stay in the know? Not entirely one or the other. Covering news is a business, and attracting business requires giving people what they want. Normally people prefer the juicy gossip over NPR, and the real-time nature of social media forces news outlets to get the information out as quickly as possible, even if it means risking inaccuracy.  The result is that there's often a trade-off between succeeding in today's mainstream news market and practicing quality journalism.

It's not that I think quality journalism is totally dead. I think it's alive and well in more niche markets that operate on smaller scales. But when it comes to mainstream national news, disaster porn is the norm. If people want the latest story and you aren't giving it to them, they'll just find it somewhere else.

That's why I think that when it comes to staying healthily informed, the burden is placed mainly on us. My generation grew up during the advent of social media, so we should know to be skeptical toward some of the news we get. Gone are the days of families crowding around their TVs at dinner to all get fed the same information. Today we're bombarded with conflicting messages on many different platforms, and it's our job to sort through the muck and not take every story at face value. And relying on our Twitter feeds and the mainstream media isn't enough if we want the full picture. We have to seek out more information on our own from reputable sources that get buried underneath the flashy headlines. I don't defend disaster porn and media sensationalization; It's just a reality that takes a little extra work to rise above.

R.I.P. Facebook messaging

Zuckerberg's latest strategy for Facebook has been to develop a series of stand-alone apps to drive user engagement. Instead of using Facebook mobile for everything from chatting to sharing photos to reading the news, Zuckerberg has pushed for separate apps like Facebook Messenger and Paper.

The problem is, people aren't entirely receptive to this idea. Even though tons of people downloaded Paper the day after its release, it now doesn't even claim a spot in the top 100 free apps. Facebook's other attempts at stand-alone apps were even more disappointing. Facebook Camera and Facebook Poke (a blatant attempt to copy Snapchat) were so unpopular that Facebook is no longer pursuing any more active development with them. Some people have downloaded Facebook Messenger for separate messaging, but a lot of people still use Facebook's all-in-one app. Soon, they won't have a choice.

Facebook recently announced that it's removing messaging capabilities from its main app, forcing people to download Messenger to chat with friends. Facebook already started notifying some users in Europe of the change, and soon, it will apply to all users.

Not everyone is pleased about the change. A writer from Mashable published "11 Reasons Why Pulling Messenger From Facebook Mobile Is A Terrible Idea," which mainly argued that people will resent having to download a separate app and switch back and forth from regular Facebook to Messenger. Facebook responded to his article defending the switch, saying that in the months since Messenger's launch, it has grown more than 70 percent. Facebook also found that people get replies 20 percent faster on Messenger than they do on the regular Facebook app.

Zuckerberg explained:

“The other thing that we’re doing with Messenger is making it so once you have the standalone Messenger app, we are actually taking Messenger out of the main Facebook app. And the reason why we’re doing that is we found that having it as a second-class thing inside the Facebook app makes it so there’s more friction to replying to messages, so we would rather have people be using a more focused experience for that.”

A more "focused experience." Therein lies Facebook's plan to conquer mobile, one app at a time. Messenger hardly even resembles Facebook. Gone is the familiar navy hue, replaced with sleek and simplified navigation. You can even use Messenger to chat with friends who don't have Facebook.

In theory, standalone apps are a good idea. People are clearly moving in the direction of using many apps for separate purposes, like Snapchat for direct picture/video messaging and Instagram for photo-sharing. But here's the problem: People don't like being forced to change. And by removing the messaging feature from Facebook mobile, Facebook is forcing people to download Messenger.

It's just like when I was a kid and I refused to do what my mother asked me to solely because it was her idea, and I wanted to come up with it on my own. Maybe a lot of people have been downloading Messenger of their own accord and enjoying it, but those people aren't a majority of Facebook users. And now the rest of us have no choice but to download Messenger, and that may not go over well.

Zuckerberg's plan to shift toward standalone apps isn't a bad one, but forcing people to comply is.

Veet tells us: Don't risk dudeness!

You know those advertising campaigns that make you go, "what were they thinking?" That's exactly the response Veet's latest "don't risk dudeness" campaign elicited from me, and from women everywhere. In order to promote its latest product, Veet wax strips, the company came out with a series of ads that basically tell women if their bodies aren't perfectly smooth, they're manly and unattractive.

The ad that has generated the most outrage features a couple in bed after a one-night-stand. The woman puts her leg over her sleeping partner, who rubs it and realizes he's actually stroking the hairy leg of a Zach Galifianakis-esque man. "Yeah, I know, I'm a little prickly. I shaved yesterday!" the man/woman says apologetically to her shocked partner.

Twitter attacks immediately ensued. Women everywhere pointed out Veet's apparent shaming of women into removing their body hair to avoid looking like a dude. A Huff Post writer said, "if Veet is to be believed, there's nothing more terrifying to a straight dude than touching a moderately hairy leg." I think that's where these ads piss me off. It's not so much that I have a feminist argument defending hairy pits, but I don't like Veet telling me that I'm unattractive, or masculine, if I miss a spot shaving. And that if my significant other finds my semi-stubbly legs next to him in the morning he'll be utterly appalled and disgusted.

We've talked a lot in class about how women are portrayed in the media, and specifically, in advertisements. Veet's latest campaign is yet another example of the media implying that a woman's physical attractiveness is her primary source of value. Don't get me wrong-- I absolutely wear make-up and shave my legs. But when a company tries to tell me that if I don't I'll look like a man, I'm not going to like it.

Shaming just isn't a good advertising strategy. I can't imagine women watching Veet's ad and thinking, "wow, I don't want to look like a dude, I better go buy some Veet wax strips!" Other beauty companies like Dove have taken a much more effective approach to advertising. Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty that launched over 10 years ago focuses on embracing women's diverse body types and redefining industry standards for beauty. Women, myself included, loved the campaign. It made us feel good, reminding us that we don't have to mimic the models on magazine covers to be attractive, and that our unique features are what make us beautiful.

I wouldn't be surprised if Veet's ads get pulled altogether, judging by the swift and angry response from women just hours after they first aired. Veet could probably take a lesson from Dove here. If you want us to buy your product, make us feel good about ourselves and build a positive association with your brand. Don't make us fear the gender-normative consequences of not buying your product.

Stop being copycats!

I realize social media companies need to compete with each other, but why must they keep being copycats?

In the summer of 2013, Vine was just gaining popularity. No other big social media platform was based on video-sharing, and people were just starting to get into the idea. Then Instagram added video-sharing capabilities, and suddenly it wasn't so special. People didn't know if they should post their videos to Vine or Instagram (or both), and Vine quickly receded into niche markets.

Similarly, Facebook tried to copy Twitter by adding a hashtag feature in June 2013. Later in January of this year, Facebook added the"trending topics" feature, which pooled data about what people were posting about the most. I remember when I saw the "trending topics" section on my Facebook minifeed, and I honestly resented the blatant similarity to Twitter. I use Twitter for conversations, not Facebook. I don't need the same functions available on every social media platform I use; That kind of defeats the purpose.

The most recent example of social-media-copying was by Vine, which just added private video messaging capabilities. Seems remarkably similar to Snapchat, which I use to send funny (and thankfully, temporary) videos of myself doing silly things to my friends. I already have Snapchat-- Why do I need Vine to do the same thing for me?

Just because another social media platform pops up and gets popular doesn't mean others should compete by copying its functions. That's what I love about social media: There isn't one platform that does it all. I use Instagram for artsy photos, Facebook for my regular photos, and Twitter for my random updates and news-sharing. If these companies keep trying to copy each other, they lose their authenticity and unique roles in our social media lives. Each time I've seen a company try to copy another, especially after Facebook introduced hashtags and trending topics, people just resent the resulting overlap and confusion.

I think Mark Zuckerberg has finally started catching on to people's desire to use many different apps, each for a unique purpose. Facebook bit off more than it could chew by taking on a myriad of social capabilities, and people started abandoning the clutter for separate apps, like Snapchat for direct messaging and Instagram for photo-sharing. Now, Zuckerberg is expressing his desire to move away from a do-it-all platform to catch up with this emerging trend. Facebook released Paper earlier this year for news-sharing and purchased Whats-App for messaging.

People don't need multiple social media platforms that all perform the same functions. If companies want to compete, they need to come up with fresh ideas for us to share in new, innovative ways. Copycatting is not the answer.

Oh knock it off, glassholes.

First it was King, the company that created Candy Crush, that tried to own the word "candy." Then Apple tried to trademark "app store." Now Google is going after an equally common English word: "glass."

To my and the rest of the world's surprise, King was successfully granted ownership of the word "candy," even though it abandoned the trademark in the U.S. a month later. Google is having less luck with "glass." The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office responded by telling Google the word "glass" can't be trademarked under federal law because it's "merely descriptive." In other words, Apple has every right to trademark the word "apple" because everyone knows Apple doesn't sell apples. Glass, however, is closely related to the Google Glass product, which creates a problem. Google isn't even the first company to go after ownership of glass. Other pending or approved glass-related trademarks by software/hardware companies include "looking glass," "iGlass," "smartglass" and "teleglass."

Google's pending trademark

King's successful trademark of the word "candy" was met with a pretty big uproar among the general public. Not only is the idea of owning such a common word pretty absurd to me, but it hurt other app develops who had created (or were creating) unrelated products that used the word "candy." King was essentially granted a monopoly over the word and had full reign to attack other smaller companies' products and pull them off the market. As if Candy Crush had any reason to feel its market share was threatened...We're talking about an app that even my mom spends countless dollars on to get mores lives.

King's, and now Google's, attempt at owning common words is a practice some people call "predatory trademarking." It's frowned upon because the winners are the giant companies that control a vast amount of the market share already, and the losers are the small players who are just trying to make a living in a cut-throat market.

I'm not an expert in trademark law, and I'm sure a lot of it comes down to complicated legal procedures with the USPTO, but I'm not sure why companies like Candy Crush and Google should be granted ownership of such common words. If other companies were trying to mimic their products and posed a real threat, that would be different. But we're talking about Google here. As if the company doesn't control enough of the world (and our lives) already.

Google is already struggling to combat its "glasshole" reputation after a bout of bad publicity brought on by some pretentious Google Glass-wearers. This latest trademark application doesn't really help Google's case. You already own half the world; why must you own the word "glass"? Let some of us common folk have a chance!

Is virtual reality really the next big thing?

If someone would've told me when I was in middle school that before I graduated college we'd be able to experience virtual reality, I probably would have laughed in their face. But now "virtual reality" are the words on everybody's lips since Facebook bought Oculus, the Kickstarter project backed originally by serious gamers. It seems to me like people's general feeling about the deal is either anger that Oculus sold out to the social media giant, or just "why..?"

The answer to the question "why?" is the subject of this TechCrunch article, in which the author strongly defends Facebook's purchase. He describes a world in the not-so-far future in which we'll project versions of ourselves into an alternate universe, socializing with the virtual versions of our friends and family wherever we please. That's where he says Facebook comes in. Virtual reality will go social, and nobody does social better than Facebook.

I'm just not sure I agree with him. Or maybe I just don't like the thought of a future in which virtual reality really is the next big thing. It's obvious that buying Oculus is an attempt by Facebook to stay ahead of the curve by adopting new, disruptive technology. But personally, I have trouble imagining a future in which we're all wearing head goggles pretending like we're basking on the beach with a pina colada. It's way too sci-fi-esque.

When I was younger I was really into the book series "Pendragon." The fourth book in the series is called "The Reality Bug," and it describes a world dominated by "Lifelight," a virtual reality that allows people to escape into their own fantasy worlds. The image of virtual reality I got from this book was a bunch of people asleep in tubes preferring to waste their lives away and exist in their imagined ones. It was kind of sad and a little bit haunting. Nobody saw the point in living their boring, everyday lives anymore, and many people chose to stay in their virtual realities permanently. Sure, a world like that is pretty extreme, but the fact that we even have the technology to make it possible makes me a little uneasy.

We've talked a lot in class about whether our phones and social media prevent us from forming meaningful connections with people in real life. Imagine if we could hang out with our friends in a virtual fantasyland whenever we pleased. What would that do to our friendships in real life? How would our virtual selves compare to our real selves? And what incentive would we have to plan vacations if we could just virtually vacation for free?

We're probably far off from these questions becoming a real concern, if they ever do. I disagree with the TechCrunch writer that VR is on a path to collide with social media. I think VR will continue to be a fringe thing, popular in the world of gamers and computer geeks, while Facebook will continue to dominate the mainstream in its separate sphere. And that's probably for the best. Maybe Zuckerberg knows something I don't, or maybe he was just scared of the possibility that VR could take off while he missed the boat. For Facebook, it doesn't really matter. They've got the money to blow.

adamdorsey.com

Hey Elite Daily, stop hating on my generation

Two recent articles published to Elite Daily have got me a little ticked. Both of them follow the Turkle-esque line of thinking we've been discussing in class, which paints technology as a pervasive evil that robs us of forming meaningful connections. The Elite Daily writers apply this thinking to my generation specifically, arguing that social media is ruining the authenticity of Generation-Y and that we should learn how to "practice what we post".

I feel like I've already read these articles a hundred times before. I'm honestly getting a little sick of hearing about how my generation is doomed to hide behind the screens of our phones and measure our self-worth in terms of "likes" and followers. It seems like it's become popular to hate Facebook and dub social media the mainstream monster. Not only is it an unoriginal argument, but it's an offensive one. It assumes we're all helplessly unaware of the effects technology is having on our lives, and that we're all content with trading real-life connections with cyber ones. The reality is very different. I think my generation is reevaluating more than ever the role that technology should play in our lives. We're making a big effort to supplement our posting and tweeting with face-to-face hangouts with our friends. Many popular bars have enacted "no-phone" policies, and when I go out to dinner with a group we often stack our phones in the center of the table to eliminate distractions.

"With technology creating this wall around our lives, it allows one to hide behind a tweet, email or text."

This line bothers me.  We don't want to hide, we want our voices to be heard. And social media can make our voices louder than ever before. One of the articles says that my generation needs to "practice what it posts," citing the novel-esque Facebook tirades people post to their pages instead of acting on their beliefs in the real world. The author implies we're too lazy or too scared to voice our opinions off of the screen, preferring instead the removed security of social media. But traditional activism and online activism aren't mutually exclusive. We're using Facebook and Twitter to boost support for campaigns we're already carrying out in real life. It's not a trade-off. Today I walked through the quad and saw around 30 students holding signs and loudly voicing their stances on the abortion debate. Onlookers paused to watch the action and discuss their own views. It's true-- Social media will never replace the power of holding a sign and shouting out how you feel in public. But we aren't trying to replace it. We use it as a tool to better inform our arguments and help us accomplish our goals. So, Elite Daily, we're practicing and we're posting.

And then there's the whole issue of "authenticity." I keep hearing people say that social media has made my generation lose it's authenticity. One of the Elite Daily authors even goes so far as to say we're losing our sense of who we really are because we're so preoccupied with how we project ourselves online. So, the fact that what we post can be viewed by all our followers makes it inherently unauthentic?  They're still our words, our photos, our lives. And what I choose to post is an authentic decision based on what thoughts and events are most important to me and worthy of being shared. Some people try to argue that because we only post the good things that happen to us on Facebook, or the prettiest pictures of us on Instagram, we lose our authenticity. I agree that real life is much messier and uglier than our Facebook profiles, but social media isn't the culprit. What about when we perfectly craft our resumes to make us seem more appealing to employers, or when we're on our best behavior at dinner to impress our significant other's parents? We've been in an internal struggle between how we perceive ourselves and how we want others to perceive us long before social media came into the picture.

We really need to move away from thinking my generation is a bunch of narcissistic, selfie-taking Instagram whores. My generation is passionate, innovative and curious. We care about politics, about revolutions happening across the world, and about the direction our lives are headed. And we're exposed to an infinitely larger pool of information and opportunities for engagement than our parents were. The problem with making social media the evil is that it pushes us away from the tools that can help us create a better future. We need to stop letting "selfies" define our relationship with technology. We need to adjust our view that social media diminishes authenticity and start thinking of it as a valuable extension of ourselves and our ideas. If you share these authors' annoyance with your Facebook friends who post bouts of TMI about their recent breakups, pick up your finger and unfriend them. Stop letting a minority that we don't like act as the poster child for our generation. 

The complicated digital aftermath of break-ups

Today I discovered that Techcrunch, one of my favorite websites for reading digital news, has a new column called #Love that explores our complicated relationship with technology in the dating realm. I've always been fascinated by how social media is changing our relationships with people, especially when it comes to dating. This article explores one facet of our love triangle with technology: The digital aftermath of a break-up. You know, the little, unwanted reminders of your ex-boyfriend that pop up in your chat boxes and minifeeds when you least expect it.

"No matter how it ends, or how it evolves after it’s over, every relationship has an echo. Today, that echo lives on the Internet."

The "echo" that lives on after we get dumped (or do the dumping) is something we all respond to differently. Jordan Crook, the author of this article, talked to several of her friends who had recently experienced a serious break-up. She concluded that how we handle the digital "echo" depends a lot on the nature of the break-up and each person's needs for moving on. She explains that people must strike a balance between "push" and "pull." The "push" is the little reminders that are thrust upon us unexpectedly online, and these are the ones we try to avoid when we block or unfollow our exes. The "pull" is when we seek out knowledge on our exes' lives by "stalking" their minifeeds.

I found this piece to be thought-provoking and very relatable. Almost everyone has experienced the digital complications that arise after a break-up. My most serious relationship lasted all through high school and ended after we both went to different colleges. We'd spent countless times together for four years, so the memories, both online and off, were everywhere. The struggle for me was deciding what was more important: Staying friends and being able to see what was going on in his life through Facebook and Twitter, or blocking him and drastically improving my chances of moving on.

It was my first time dealing with the online aftermath of a breakup, so I vacillated several times before settling into a comfortable balance between the "push" and the "pull." One of the most important things I learned, which has greatly alleviated the pain during my future breakups, is to minimize the "pull." Actively seeking out information on your exes' happenings and whereabouts too soon after a break-up is almost always self-destructive. Crook aptly relates people's behavior on social media after break-ups to the idea of a "success theater." Both exes will be much more inclined to tweak and tailor their feeds to put the best and most fun aspects of themselves on display. After all, people want to give off the image that they're happier and better off after a break-up, even if the opposite couldn't be more true. The problem then becomes that whenever we "pull" for information, we see all the fun things our ex is doing without us, which makes it even harder to keep our chins up and focus on our own lives.

Crook also talks about the "break-up makeover," the common practice of cleaning up our profiles after we get dumped. I've personally observed that everyone does this differently, usually depending on the terms on which the relationship ended. After a nasty break-up, people are way more likely to cut their ex out entirely, wiping out any digital trace of them from their profiles. It starts with unfriending and unfollowing, and then with deleting photos, sometimes to the point where an unaware person would have no idea the relationship had ever occurred. If the breakup occurs on more amicable terms, people may stay "friends" on Facebook, but then the little unexpected reminders occur more frequently and can sting just the same.

Having grown up in the digital age, it's hard for me to imagine a time when these considerations were not a normal part of dating and break-ups. But my generation was the first that had to learn to cope with the myriad of complications that arise when our relationships IRL collide with our digital lives. We've had to learn as we go, using a series of trials and errors until we strike a comfortable balance we can live with. It's uncertain territory, but we're getting better at it with practice. I think we're learning to exercise more self-control online, averting our gaze from our exes' posts when we know it will harm us and focusing instead on using social media to further our own happiness.

Gretchen, stop trying to make #nocializing happen!

I am trying to make #nocializing happen. And fortunately, I don't have a posse of Mean Girls squashing all of my ideas.  But before I introduce the term "nocializing" and why I think it has potential to make it big, let me talk about what I think makes something go viral in the first place.

In my opinion, the two single most important elements to make something go viral are timeliness and humor. Take for example when the refs called a technical foul against Coach K in the ACC tournament finals (Did Duke win?) after he threw his Expo marker onto the court in frustration. Tons of people were tuning into the game, and it was kind of an absurd foul to call (as much as I welcome any personal foul called against Coach K, however unwarranted). Within minutes, some clever, quick-thinking person created a Twitter handle called "Coach K's Expo Marker." The marker tweeted things like, "I don't deserve to be treated this way. Please retweet for all of the abused markers out there." It was an instant hit and garnered thousands of followers by the end of the first half. And then we all know the pioneer of well-timed viral content: Oreo. Its "You can still dunk in the dark" tweet during last year's Superbowl power outage has easily become one of the most-talked-about cases of a brand successfully leveraging social media.

Now on to my idea for something that could go viral. First of all, I can't take credit for the term "nocializing." One of my friends coined it when he took a photo of me and a few others fishing by the pond, only to discover the photo revealed all of us staring down at our phones. "You guys are nocializing hard," he joked. And then I realized how perfect it was.

It's timely. It seems like everybody (or at least our class) is talking about how the iPhone has taken over our lives and rendered us all incapable of living in the moment. I don't entirely agree with that, but I know we've all been in situations with a big group in which you suddenly look up and realize you've all been sitting in silence typing on your phones. It happens pretty often, and its frequency coincides with my generation's reevaluation of the role technology should play in our lives.

It's humorous. The larger the group, the more amusing. Extra points for the more absurd locations, like when we were all caught "fishing" by the pond. Here's a photo I took of my friends nocializing on a roof during last week's burst of warm weather:

#nocializing

See how fun it can be? Nobody's safe. Start targeting the antisocial and let's make #nocializing happen!

Don't blame the phone, blame the one who holds it

In class yesterday we had an extended discussion about the effects of technology on our lives. The conversation centered around three questions:

1. Have we stopped living in the moment?
2. Is conversation dead?
3. Is social media making us sad?

We ultimately decided that to each question, the answer is sometimes "yes"and sometimes "no." It might seem like a convenient way to avoid taking a clear stance on how technology is affecting our daily lives, but the way I see it, there is no other choice.

Making a generalization about the effects of technology-- iPhone use or social media use, for example-- requires making a generalization about people. Technology has brought us a host of tools that can be used for good or bad, in moderation or in excess. Hand two people a Netflix subscription and one may watch their favorite show for an hour before bed each night and the other may binge-watch to the detriment of his real-life relationships. Similarly, one person may use Facebook to maintain regular contact with friends and family while another may escape to the depths of their feeds until voyeurism replaces meaningful friendships.

I babysit a girl and a boy, in 5th and 3rd grade respectively. For them, the lure of their iPads is real, but fortunately their parents have instilled in them values of self-control by allotting specific amounts of time for internet use. When I see young families in a restaurant all glued to the screens of their smartphone, I blame not the smartphone but the family's lack of discretion to ban phone use at the dinner table. "Everything in moderation" is a bit of a cliche, but I think it applies when answering the three questions above.

Have we stopped living in the moment? Some of us probably have. The people who spend the duration of a concert viewing it through the screen they hold in front of them, for example. But others have learned to use their phones selectively to prolong a special moment, capturing the memory for future reminiscence. In my post about the UNC basketball victory over Duke this year, in which I respond to the question "did our phones ruin our victory over Duke?", I argue that my phone actually enhanced my memory of the win. Now whenever I want to relive that moment I can watch the video I took as I stormed my way from the Dean Dome to Franklin. And my ability to do that outweighs the slight distraction I might have felt by bringing my phone out for a few minutes

Is conversation dead? Not for some of us. For some of us, conversation is richer than ever, flourishing on more platforms than we've ever had access to before. A face-to-face dinner table conversation can be augmented by the countless new perspectives that are voiced on Twitter, forcing us to refine, and sometimes reevaluate, our own arguments. For others who choose to hide behind their screens and use digital communication as a substitute for in-person chats, conversation may be dying. Technology has the ability to shape, extend and challenge our conversations in new ways when we use it to supplement the conversations we have in real life.

Is social media making us sad? All the fuss about FOMO has led many critics to conclude that technology is creating a general sense of dissatisfaction among its users who are constantly exposed to the exciting, superior-seeming lives of their friends. Sometimes, this is true. Over Spring Break I had to make an active effort to avoid Instagram so I wouldn't compare my work-filled break with the tropical, booze-laden adventures of my friends. But that's a choice everyone is capable of making. It's not like social media is forcing us to wallow in our own envy. The happy people use social media to connect, share and grow. All of my cousins on my mom's side live in Texas, and I see them once a year during our annual family beach trip. Before social media, I had to wait a year to find out how they had changed and what new things they'd gotten involved in, but with Facebook I now feel closer to them than ever.

Humans have always (and will always) adapt to new technologies in different ways, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. A knife can be a cooking tool or a weapon, and just because some people use it to inflict harm doesn't mean we should discount all of its wonderful uses. The problem I find with people like Sherry Turkle is they place too much blame on the technology and not on the people using it. Technology is capable of being seductive, distracting and intrusive, but it can also be informative, reflective and empowering. It's every person's job to define the role of technology in his/her life in order to harness its benefits and minimize its potential harm.

There's an app for that

New apps pop up every day that purport to make our lives easier. Calendars, reminders, planners, and more help us keep our crazy lives organized. You also likely have an app for your bank, for your local weather, and an ESPN app to follow your favorite sports teams. Some of these apps have become so integral to my daily life that I honestly don't know what I would do without them (or how I even functioned before the iPhone). But I would argue that some apps that claim to make our lives easier really just add to the clutter, digitizing tasks that are better off done the old-fashioned way.

Below, I list a few apps that I couldn't live without, apps that have undoubtedly earned their permanent place on my iPhone home screen. Then I'll list some apps, old and new, that I find to be pretty frivolous and whose purpose is better served off of the screen.

Keep It:

1. Wells Fargo app

No idea what I would do without my Wells Fargo app. I use it every day, whether it be to check my account balance before I buy a Starbucks latte, or to deposit a check from babysitting, or to send off a bill payment for my apartment utilities. Just typing that out reminded me that I need to send off a bill payment.

2.  MapMyRun

This app will forever be my workout buddy. I have a short attention span when it comes to running, so I like to take impromptu routes when I go for a jog. This app uses GPS location data to chart out my route and calculate the distance, average pace and calories burned for a given run. A voice also gives you updates (over your music) when you hit certain mile markers. 

3.  Shazam 

Oh, how did I survive the days of playing "Name that Tune" with my brother and not being able to cheat with Shazam? Just kidding, I never cheat. But I use this app probably more often than most, pulling it out whenever I hear a song on the radio or at a bar that I like. The best part about Shazam is that it saves the tags of all the songs you shazam, so I go back later and download all the ones I liked.

4.  Scanner app

My scanner app (I used TinyScan until it started charging, and now I use Genius Scan) has been the unexpected frontrunner to make my list of most-valued apps. It's perfect for scanning and sending off forms, which I've been doing a lot of as I prepare for studying abroad this summer. You just snap a picture of the document and the app resizes, reformats and enhances it for you, spitting out a ready-to-email .pdf doc.

5.  Dropbox

This is probably on most people's essential repertoire, but Dropbox has replaced the old "email-it-to-yourself" technique and allowed me to access important documents at home and on my desktops at work or in class.



Ditch It:

1. Meditation apps

 Mediation apps were the cool new thing of 2013. Calm, Headspace and Mindfulness are a few popular ones that, as one Huffington Post article put it, can bring you "Inner Peace On the Go." But I find something inherently contradictory about meditating with my handheld. The reason meditation is popular right now is because it offers a space for silence and solitude in the cluttered, digital overload that is our everyday lives. Using your iPhone to facilitate that kind of escape just defeats the purpose.

2. Tinder

Nothing good comes out of Tinder, unless maybe you use it for pure entertainment. Tinder is an invitation for young people who lack the confidence or social skills to date normally to flirt casually on their phones with similar people in their area and judge each other solely by physical appearances. Tinder prides itself on its number of "matches," but I'd like some data on how many of those matches lead to long-term relationships.

3. 30/30

I heard about this app in Mashable's recent article, "9 Super Simple Apps That Will Make Your Life Easier." It's basically a fancy timer that organizes your tasks into 30-minute chunks, allowing you to focus completely on one task at a time for just 30 minutes. I, for one, think this app would make accomplishing my daily tasks a lot harder. Not only do the things I need to accomplish rarely boil down to 30-minute intervals, but I'd be too distracted by my dwindling time allotment to actually focus.

4. Cloak

This "anti-social" app I wrote about in my last post is totally unnecessary, and I seriously doubt it will ever catch on. To recap, it lets you track your friends using location data and helps you avoid them by notifying you if you get within a certain radius of them. Its founders think anti-social apps are soon to be on the rise, but I don't. I'd only put active effort into seeing people I want to see, not into avoiding the possible awkward run-in with people I don't.

5. My Fitness Pal

Okay, I know a lot of people use this app and find it really helpful. You basically use it to set fitness and weight loss goals, and then type in every piece of food you consume and every minute of physical activity you perform, and it keeps you on track for achieving your goals. A friend and I gave this app a try one time when we decided we wanted to lose 5 pounds for Spring Break. I lasted all of 24 hours before I grew extremely irritated with having to type in the exact amount and brand of everything I was eating (Who knows how much a "cup" of Cheetos is?). I prefer good, old-fashioned self control.


So there's my list of must-haves and need-nots. What's yours?

 

The anti-social network is not the answer

Social media has always been a way for us to connect with friends. Twitter gives us live updates of their activities, Instagram shows us photos of where they've been, and Foursquare allows them to virtually check in to nearby locations. But what if there was an app designed for the exact opposite purpose - to help us avoid our friends?

mashable.com

The new app Cloak does just that. Created by Buzzfeed's former creative director Chris Baker and programmer Brian Moore, Cloak teams up with other popular apps that use location data to help you be more anti-social. Cloak creates a map of all your nearby friends' whereabouts, allowing you to 'flag' particular friends you don't want to see. Then, if you get too close (the default distance is half a mile), Cloak will warn you to stay away. So far, Cloak uses location data from Instagram and Foursquare but has plans to try to expand in the future.

In an email to the Washington Post, Baker said: “I think we’ve seen the crest of the big social network … I think anti-social stuff is on the rise. You’ll be seeing more and more of these types of projects.”

I think there is some truth to what Baker is saying, but I think apps like Cloak take it a little too far. I do think we've already seen the crest of the big social network. I also think people are starting to resent the state of constant connectedness that has defined my generation post-Facebook. With this resentment we're starting to see a kind of backlash. Exclusive restaurants and bars have started instituting 'no phone' policies. Companies are calling for 'no phone days' to alleviate employees' constant attachment to technology. And perhaps most interesting, studies show that millennials are in general dissatisfied with the pervasive role technology plays in their lives.

But here's where I think Baker and apps like Cloak have got it wrong. The days of the social network as we know it may be numbered, but what people yearn for is not an anti-social network. It's a network of fewer, but deeper and more authentic connections. By banning cell phones at nightclubs, management is forcing patrons to interact the old fashioned way, forming connections through genuine, face-to-face interaction.

Our tech-weary generation doesn't want to use our phones to stay less connected, we just want to connect to friends in more meaningful ways. And apps like Cloak aren't the answer. 

Still tweeting in Turkey

neurope.eu

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan learned a lesson this weekend about the power of social media when his attempt to shut down Twitter backfired. Erdogan was trying to curb the proliferation of tweets from Turkish citizens that linked to incriminating material pointing to government corruption.Turkey is a top-10 country in number of active Twitter users, and the website has been integral in organizing protests and demonstrations in the past. 

But just hours after Erdogan followed through on his threat to "rip the roots out" from Twitter, skilled hackers had already found a way to circumvent the ban, tweeting out instructions for others to regain access to the website. Hours after Twitter was shut down, the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey was trending worldwide. The prime minister's attempt to exert government superiority only revealed the power of the masses and social media.

Another apparent triumph for social media occurred recently in Ukraine, as citizens ignored government intimidation such as text messages that said, "Dear user, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance" and continued to support the overthrow of Ukraine's authoritarian government on Twitter.

Journalism has long acted as a watchdog on government, but now social media provides everyday citizens the opportunity to be watchdogs. One government misstep can become widespread news at the hands of social media users. For authoritarian governments attempting to filter their citizens' access to information, Twitter is their worst nightmare. It is totally free from government control and capable of instantly unifying the masses around a cause.

 As a writer for the Wall Street Journal puts it, "every leader—from Putin to Obama—now has to contend with the instant awareness of his actions." Twitter makes government leaders accountable and forces them to pay attention to the things their citizens are saying. As Erdogan learned, trying to stifle online dissent only strengthens the dissenters, to whom Twitter is an important outlet to express their beliefs.

Turkey, who is currently trying to join the European Union, just sent the world a very discouraging message about its commitment to democratic ideals. Open access to information and the freedom to express beliefs are key components of democracy that are furthered by platforms like Twitter. Try to take this away from people, and they'll just tweet louder.

Science does not explain binge-watching

Today I stumbled across a tweet from my favorite news source, The Week, that caught my attention. "We're hard-wired to binge watch. The science behind our Netflix addictions," it read. It was an interesting enough claim to click. But as much as I (usually) love The Week, this article was way off.

The article is called, "The science behind our insatiable need to binge-watch TV: It turns out we're wired to watch episode after episode after episode." The author claims to have discovered a scientific explanation for binge-watching. But the "scientific evidence" (which ranges from psychological to anthropological in nature) doesn't really explain our Netflix addiction at all. Here are a few of the article's explanations and why I don't like them:

1. Empathy

Apparently the human ability to feel "empathy," a term coined at the turn of the 20th century but that has been around since the beginning of time, explains binge-watching. I don't deny that empathy helps us feel more emotionally connected to the characters we watch, but that's not a new phenomenon. Empathy made me feel attached to all of my favorite childhood TV characters, too. And if anything, having to wait a week until the next airing of my favorite show made me even more attached to them, left wondering what they would do next. Now that Netflix has given us access to full seasons, we can come and go as we please, which I would argue could make us less invested in characters.

2. "Neurocinematics"

A term coined by a Princeton psychologist that deals with how our brain responds to videos. His findings are pretty obvious... the more clear-cut the emotions conveyed are in the clip, or the stronger the action, the more people's brains react in the same way. Basically, a scene of a bunch of people getting their heads chopped off elicits a more similar response from viewers than a scene of the afternoon activity at a Manhattan park. Duh? The article also never really ties "neurocinematics" to binge-watching, which is a content-neutral phenomenon.

3. People like it.

"In a survey commissioned by Netflix, 61 percent of 1,500 online respondents claimed to binge-watch Netflix regularly, and three-quarters reported having positive feelings in doing this." 

Okay, so you've told us that people are doing it and that they like it. Not exactly groundbreaking, especially coming from Netflix itself.

It kind of seems like The Week is grasping for straws here. In reality, there is a much more simple explanation. Science doesn't make us prone to binge-watching; society does. Binge-watching is an escape from all the clutter and the stress we experience on a daily basis. Just like how people went to the movie theater to escape their busy jobs, people now just hop into bed and marry their laptops to find solace. Only today we have a whole lot more to escape, so we're practicing more extreme forms of escaping.

Another much more plausible explanation is basic economics. Netflix wants us to binge-watch. There's a reason they release full seasons at once. They want us to get hooked and leave us feeling like how I felt when I annihilated Season 2 of House of Cards in one day: Empty. And what better way to fill the hole inside us than with more Netflix? Seems pretty convenient for Netflix's revenue stream.

Binge-watching isn't something we're hardwired to do. It's a learned behavior we developed after Netflix suddenly handed us instant access to full seasons of our favorite shows. We learn all kinds of behavior in response to new tools. We weren't hardwired to think in 140 characters-- Jack Dorsey founded Twitter and we learned to communicate in shorter language. Then the news media caught on and started feeding us small bits of content to appease our shortening attention spans. Then Buzzfeed started making lists to organize the clutter of bits into a format we could digest. Our behavior is constantly adapting to new technologies, and new technologies are constantly giving us new ways to practice this behavior.

The problem with the scientific explanation for binge-watching is that it's science that's been around for forever. We've always been hardwired to feel empathy and react certain way to stimuli, but binge-watching is a relatively new phenomenon. That's why I argue our helpless Netflix addictions are much more simple: We were all suffering from digital-induced information overload and a poor economy, and Netflix seized the opportunity to provide us with an escape.

Does Facebook screening by employers lead to workplace discrimination?

We're constantly told to beware of how we portray ourselves online. Social media is now a commonplace recruiting tool for employers, and one bad tweet or tagged photo from years ago could jeopardize your chances with a company. Several of my friends have gone so far as to change their Facebook names to a nickname or delete their accounts entirely to avoid scrutiny by potential employers.

The importance of monitoring our online presence is something we're all pretty much aware of. But a more interesting question: Is it fair that employers are using social media to screen candidates? Are they really ending up with better, more qualified employees by weeding out people based on their profiles?

Federal employment laws prohibit employers from discriminating from hiring people based on age, family medical history, religion or pregnancy status. However, a quick scan of a Facebook profile can often reveal several of those factors, depending on the person's privacy settings. Moreover, older people are less inclined to use computers, so screening based on social media presence could put these people at a disadvantage. Some of these issues were raised at an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission meeting last week.

Most of the hearing dealt with hiring practices and how employers use social media to screen candidates. The problem I find is that's difficult to monitor. Most sites don't allow users to track who has viewed their profile, except LinkedIn, which is inherently much more professional than personal. If an employer visited a candidate's Facebook page and saw that he/she was Muslim, or if a company like Chick-fil-A founded on Christian values saw that a potential new employee was gay and did not call him/her for an interview, how could the employer's bias be proven or disproven? It'd be pretty tough.

But aside from the risk of discrimination, employers may have another incentive to adopt strict guidelines for social media screening. A new study reveals that candidates who know they have been screened for professionalism on social media adopt a more negative perception of the company. This finding is consistent with rising concerns over invasion of privacy online. The most qualified candidates likely will choose between several job offers, so hearing that they've been snooped on may sway their decision and backfire on the company.

A few days ago, I got a friend request from a public relations company on Facebook and was very taken aback. My Facebook privacy settings are as private as they go, so I knew the company couldn't view any of my photos or personal information, but I found myself in a dilemma.... Do I accept the request and allow the firm to see everything (some of which they might deem unfit for their company culture) or do I deny it, which might seem offensive or suspicious and also jeopardize my prospects?

These are sticky questions that don't have a clear-cut answer. The landscape for job recruiting is constantly shifting because of social media and federal regulations haven't yet caught up. It will be interesting to see how the EEOC handles some of these issues about social media screening and how employers respond. But for now, it's better to play it safe by keeping a clean social media profile and letting our skills win us the job.

Calling for an online Bill of Rights

A few weeks ago, I posted about the war over net neutrality and likened it to the American Revolution and a struggle over freedom and equality. Now, Tim Berners-Lee, the founding father of the internet, is calling for an online Bill of Rights. He says a document is needed to govern the internet and protect people from governmental and corporate abuse.

Today's internet certainly isn't what Berners-Lee had in mind when he drafted a proposal 25 years ago for what would eventually become the World Wide Web. The web was designed as an open space with a level playing field, free of ties to greed and power. But today, the internet is increasingly regarded with an air of cynicism and distrust as the curtain is slowly lifted on hoards of personal data and breaches of privacy. Much like when English subjects imposed the Magna Carta upon the King of England, Berners-Lee calls for global collaboration to draft a document that protects everyday folks' online rights.

A very compelling point he makes is that the free and open flow of information is essential to democracy. If we have to constantly worry about "what's happening at the back door" and what kind of information the government is holding, we lose trust in the entire system. And it has ramifications for much more than just government. Without a free and open internet, we erect barriers that prevent understanding and connectedness among different nations and cultures.

An internet that affords some people more access than others is a notion many of us quickly dismiss as unimportant or irrelevant. Maybe that's because the idea of "data" is so abstract. Most of the time the tiny bits of information floating around cyberspace don't produce any immediate impact, and it's easy to play out-of-sight-out-of-mind. If people were hoarding our money, or if leaders were wrongly detaining us, we'd notice. Those are tangible and egregious violations of our freedoms. But what Berners-Lee is trying to suggest is that an internet controlled by power structures may be just as dangerous, and just as contradictory to democratic ideals.

One challenge Berners-Lee notes is that the document must be global, not confined to any particular border, culture or government system. After all, the internet is a system for everyone. It's a place where anyone can speak freely, where anyone can create content, and where anyone can establish an online presence. Drafting a Bill of Rights would be a major step toward ensuring the free and open World Wide Web Berners-Lee had in mind.

What do you think? If you had to write a global, online Bill of Rights, what rights would you include?

techcrunch.com

Spring Break FOMO

I've become acutely aware over the past few days that social media is the root of all FOMO. It's UNC's Spring Break, and while most of my friends are sipping on pina coladas dangling their toes into crystal pools surrounded by waiters carrying more pina coladas, I'm staying in Chapel Hill and working. I don't mean to sound like a total ingrate; I love Chapel Hill and am very happy to be saving money for what will be an incredible summer. But every time I log onto Facebook or check my Instagram feed I'm bombarded with enough images of tropical paradise to make even the least FOMO-prone person crumble.

It's also just about impossible to escape. After vowing to avoid Instagram, I logged onto Facebook to reply to a message from a friend only to see that it ended with the signature "Sent from Cancun, Mexico." Snapchat isn't safe either. I'm hesitant to tap on each pending snap because I know it will probably reveal my bikini-clad friends splashing around the water in feigned candidness. Okay, maybe I'm just bitter...

But all of this got me thinking.

FOMO has been around forever, long before the advent of social media. When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and whine to my parents about things the other kids had at school that I didn't ("But Mom, everyone else eats Lunchables!"). Oh, the envy of those pre-packaged pepperonis and cold tomato sauce....

I was also practically the last person on earth to get a smartphone, thanks to my parents' misguided assumption that it was excessive to have a phone with internet capabilities. I was a college freshman unable to check email or Facebook from my handheld, and I'd developed such a chronic case of FOMO that my parents finally took pity on me.

It's kind of like a modern-day "Keeping up with the Joneses." Before, we developed FOMO when we interacted with people and became aware of the things they had or the things they talked about doing. Now, all we have to do is pull out our smartphones for live, instant updates on all of our friends' awesomeness.

So is all of this healthy? How much extra time, money and effort do we put into keeping up with our friends now that social media has basically created a cesspool of FOMO? I know I'm guilty of going out way too often because I think about how good a time all my friends will have without me if I stay in. Sometimes it's worth it, but many times I realize the outing wasn't much different than all the others, and I could've benefited from saving the money and binging on Netflix.

But I also think FOMO can be a good thing. A few weeks ago I saw Instagram posts of my friends enjoying a Carolina baseball game on a sunny Chapel Hill day, and I was reminded how much I enjoy baseball games and that I need to go to them more often. A few days ago, my friend posted a picture of a delicious-looking Starbucks concoction ordered off the "secret menu" that gave me inspiration for my next coffee run.

The fact is, being able to constantly know what everybody else is up to has its perks and its obvious downsides. In situations like my current one, it's very easy to compare my Spring Break to everyone else's and feel like I'm seriously missing out. But the tradeoff is that I get to save money for traveling abroad this summer. I think the best way to approach FOMO is to realize that we can't all do everything all the time. There will always be someone doing something cooler than you and posting about it. But the next week, maybe you'll be basking in the sun in Hawaii while they're crammed into a cubicle. Instead of scrolling through your feeds and feeling like you're missing out, just remember that your time is coming.

Crowdfund my chances at true love!

Raising money for that weird project idea you've always had is easier than ever before. Thanks to the rise of crowdfunding, there are ample platforms that can connect you to other like-minded people willing to throw out a few bucks. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have made a name for themselves by turning people's dreams into reality with a just little help from the internet.

A few of my friends opened up a brewery in Carrboro called Steel String last year and used Indiegogo to help fund the design and construction of an outdoor patio. In just a few short months, they raised almost $6,000 from friends and local residents. Two students who participated in Semester at Sea last year (the program I'm thrilled to be a part of this summer) raised the entire cost of tuition through crowdfunding and coming up with creative, travel-related prizes for their top donors.

I'm all about people reaching their goals, and sites like these allow great ideas to grow. But one of the latest campaigns to hit crowdfunding has me raising an eyebrow. The Dating Ring, a matchmaking start-up that began in New York, has started a Crowdtilt campaign to fly single women from male-scarce New York to male-abundant San Francisco. The company's overall goal is to reach $50,000, but it needs at least $10,000 to go through with the project. It would then fly "carefully selected" eligible bachelorettes to San Francisco over Memorial Day to meet their chosen hunks. The campaign video (which you can watch below) talks a lot about the "ratios" and "numbers" that have reduced women's dating lives in New York to such meager existences. The women featured say they wouldn't hesitate to fly across the country for love, and they plead people to support the Crowdtilt project. Dating Ring CEO Lauren Kay says the idea is one she'd been joking about with her friends for a while until she decided to try to make it a reality. 




Seems like a harmless experiment, right? Take a bunch of single, male-deprived city girls and drop them in a valley of technology and too much libido and see who falls in love? But here's my problem with it: The campaign makes two poor assumptions that I kind of thought we were past at this point.

1. That women are moveable objects that will be totally uprooted from their lives and careers in pursuit of their dream guy.
2. That women always date men and men always date women. The "ratios" being lamented in each city only apply to the heterosexual dating world. I bet you don't see all the gay men in San Francisco losing a wink of sleep over it.

I can't help but think the women in the video come off a little pathetic as they bemoan their circumstances and fantasize about the opportunity to fly across the country for love. Kind of like when I cringe during every season finale of The Bachelor when the final female contestant doesn't even blink at the thought of dropping everything and starting a new life wherever her man chooses (but don't get me wrong, I'm still wildly and unashamedly entertained by The Bachelor).

Kay says the only reason they're planning to ship the women cross-country first is because of all the winter weather in New York, and she plans to organize another trip for the men to travel east later. Okay, maybe that makes it a little more fair, but the whole thing still feels like a reversion to traditional dating dynamics.

Kay says over 100 people have contributed already, but the numbers are showing up lower due to a Crowdtilt bug. I guess if it reaches its goal then enough people think it's a better idea than I do, but I can't say I'll be helping tilt this project to fruition.