Category: Commentary
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Did Twitter’s design inevitably led us to Brexit and Trump?
Last week we talked about how mediums—like film and novels—have their own built-in rules, and how those rules necessarily shape the way you can tell…
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The Tom Bombadil theory of media literacy
One of the most profound lessons you can learn about media literacy is that it isn’t enough to talk about the content—you need to talk…
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YouTube and the end of “internet culture”
Last week YouTube officially announced that the trending page is going away, to be replaced with separate trending pages just for music, podcasts, and movie…
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Do it anyway.
I hate running. I used to believe that, over time, this would change. I thought, over time, that I would grow to love running out of…
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How to bring democracy to America
Imagine that you, as a philanthropist or activist who wants to help spread democracy across the world, read about a country described as a “flawed…
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The hardest thing I do every week (and how I do it)
I write a lot. I’ve finished just shy of 150 articles so far this year between Lifehacker, PopSci, WIRED, and PCMag, an average of 25…
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Tech is making things easier—just not for you
“Technology makes everything more complicated,” an elderly relative said to me. It’s hard to argue with. In this specific situation she had paid to reserve…
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Mark Zuckerberg sees loneliness as a market opportunity
The internet used to be exciting—its potential to make the world better seemed endless. In the early 2010s it felt inevitable that innovation would make…
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You can use your laptop as a desktop computer
The more you learn about a subject the less capable you are of understanding what the average person knows about it. In journalism this can…
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We buy too much crap anyway
If you want to understand America, spend some time in thrift stores. These are monuments to our collective excess—a museum of the things we’ve collected…