A new psych paper on why being extremely online makes you cynical
A new psychology study on how being disrespected leads to increasing cynicism has repercussions for online behavior
Category Socio-cultural change
Amy Orben: ‘To talk about smartphones affecting the brain is a slippery slope’
The psychologist Amy Orben talks about the widespread fear that smartphones are harmful to our wellbeing – and the difficulty of proving it
Three narratives that stymie social change and what we can do about it
Nat Kendall-Taylor studied nearly 40 different social issues and the cultural models people use to understand them. He found three cultural models that stymie social change—and three research-based messaging strategies that can help shift them.
Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing
The Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing, a multi-sited research project based at UCL Anthropology, employs a team of 11 anthropologists conducting simultaneous 16-month ethnographies in Ireland, Italy, Cameroon, Uganda, Brazil, Chile, Al-Quds, China, and Japan.
[Book] All the Ghosts in the Machine
What happens to our data when we die? - A fascinating and really well-written book about digital legacy after death.
NYTimes Magazine special issue on the future of the internet
In this special issue, the New York Times Magazine has tried to see the internet and its likely future as best as they can, in the hope that - after decades as imagining it as a utopia, and then a few years as seeing it as a dystopia - we might finally begin to see it for what it is, which is a set of powerful technologies in the midst of some serious flux.
Old, online, and fed on lies: How an aging population will reshape the internet
Although many older Americans have, like the rest of us, embraced the tools and playthings of the technology industry, a growing body of research shows they have disproportionately fallen prey to the dangers of internet misinformation and risk being further…
Papers on behaviour, design and the circular economy
Consumer insights into the circular economy Report of stakeholder meeting, 25 October 2018, 14 pages The “Stakeholder Meeting: Consumer Insights into the Circular Economy” in Brussels on 25 October 2018, was co-organised by the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption (CSCP)…
[Book] The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power Shoshana Zuboff Profile Books, 31 January 2019 704 pages The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the…
The tyranny of story
In this BBC Radio 4 series, British journalist John Harris examines the potency of narrative, both in the stories that define us as individuals and in those that shape our understanding of the public domain. Story is ubiquitous – and…