My ten online vices

There are online activities I never get around to — like organizing my photo library — and then there are the activities that are my eternal time sucks. Here are some of the online activities that have stolen years of my life.

When and how to communicate online

Don’t e-mail what you can blog. Don’t blog what you can tweet. Don’t tweet what you can DM. Don’t DM what you wouldn’t publish.

Status update: Twittering your way to effective (and expressive) communication

Like many forms of online conversation, status updates make it easy to confuse the expressive value of communication with the effective value of communicaiton. I’m concerned about the expressive value of communication when I’m “getting something off my chest”, “speaking my truth”, or engaging in some form of creative expression. I’m concerned about the effective value of communication when I’m trying to get you to hear me, listen to me, or understand me.

5 ways to shape the soul of the Internet

We can direct the Internet’s flow towards our most craven instincts (spam, porn, gambling) or towards our vision of what the world can be like (online volunteering, e-giving, digital art). Just as the soul of money, or the role of money in the world, is the product of individual decisions as well as systemic forces, the soul of the Internet can be shaped by how we individually engage with the online sphere.