The best weekend activities are most likely not the ones you’re currently doing
Just because you didn’t work last weekend doesn’t mean you had a good weekend.
You should find time for eudaimonic activities this weekend.
You are the product
This is a long one, and the paragraph below only scratches the surface. This topic — of advertising, privacy, and the role that these few big companies play in our daily lives through a front — is increasingly important to understand in today’s world, so take the time to understand.
Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect between what a company says it does — ‘connect’, ‘build communities’ — and the commercial reality.
Cal Newport on taking your life back from technology
A great podcast to add to your rotation.
The “Deep Work” author, Cal Newport, on focusing on what matters, regaining your “cognitive fitness,” and taking control of your time.
September 20, 2017 podcast social media privacy tech addiction
Active Listening
Conversational narcissists will often repeat shift-responses until the conversation steers towards them. Again.
September 20, 2017 farnam st attention tech addiction communication
How I Got My Attention Back
Technology is commanding our attention in infinite, insurmountable loops. A country trip off-grid helped me escape.
September 20, 2017 wired social media privacy tech addiction instagram
How Instagram Makes You Basic, Boring, and Completely Deranged
By now, most people are familiar with the bad tendencies Instagram encourages: self-absorption, stalking, pastel-pink blandness. Two recent works—a novel, “Sympathy,” and a film, “Ingrid Goes West”—take this as their subject.
September 20, 2017 vice social media privacy tech addiction instagram
Addicted to Your iPhone? You’re Not Alone
Tristan Harris believes Silicon Valley is addicting us to our phones. He’s determined to make it stop.
September 20, 2017 the atlantic social media privacy tech addiction instagram
The Privilege of Logging Off
I often refer to the Varian Rule, the theory that one can forecast the future by observing the preferences of rich people today. While this would have predicted the current ubiquity of the internet if applied twenty years ago, today it points toward a partial retreat from today’s digital saturation