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A balanced look at the mental impact of social media

Jun 25, 2010 |

"The Internet is distracting and isolating and diminishes our capacity for focused work." "The Internet is transformative and connecting and is making us steadily smarter." The conversation about the Internet's mental and social impact often feels like a debate...

Discovering family through a social media crisis

Jun 24, 2010 | ,

My latest blog post for Harvard Business Review tackles the challenge of surviving a social media emergency. It was inspired by what turned out to be a minor emergency: the earthquake that rattled most of central Canada yesterday. As it happened, I was in Ottawa at...

Patrolling the boundaries in social networking

Jun 24, 2010 |

Rob Jewitt, a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Sunderland, writes about the university's recently introduced social networking site for students. Embedded in his description of the site's features are some interesting reflections on the kinds of...

What online music fans learn about online community

Jun 23, 2010 |

Anastasia Goodstein says this about how social networks have changed the relationship among music fans and between fans and artists: While the future of MySpace may be questionable, I have to credit the service with transforming the relationship between artists and...

A techsperiment that puts family tech use in a new light

Jun 23, 2010 |

Last week we conducted a techsperiment on eliminating gadgets from our family time: we swore off using iPhones, iPads and computers from the time we got home (5 or 6) until the time the kids were asleep (8 or 9). We did pretty well during the week, and discovered that...

4 ways online communication can build relationships

Jun 22, 2010 | ,

Dear Alex: The Internet can be good for relationships. No, it's not an affirmation. It's the argument I'd like to make to Alex Lickerman, who recently wrote a post about the Effect of Technology on Relationships for his blog on Psychology Today. While I applaud his...

Using ecosystems to model the abundance of the Internet

Jun 21, 2010 |

John Naughton had a remarkably thoughtful and useful piece in the Observer this weekend, Everything you need to know about the internet. He covers what he deems the nine essential truths you have to understand about life online, and while that may be overreaching, he...

Putting a price on friendship

Jun 20, 2010 |

I'll give you $2 for the guy you talked to at an office party last week. The friend you play hockey with every weekend, on the other hand, is worth $75. Your college roommate? She'll net you a cool $1,000. If the idea of assigning a price tag to each of your friends...

A practice to make your online friendships more meaningful

Jun 18, 2010 |

I wonder if technology and social media has compressed our relationships into a process that we can barely recognize? That question is at the heart of Rhett Smith's thoughtful blog post, Technology: Connected, Yet Lonelier Than Ever. He argues that by making it so...