Burning the candle at both ends
TL;DR #180 – 1/11/2019

Hi all, welcome to TL;DR. Your weekly dose of expertise in technology.

• The Case for Anonymity Online – This post details some of my recent thoughts about identity, and sharing online.
• The Privilege of Screentime – This post from our screentime website posits that you don’t have to give children access to devices. It could/should be a right…not a privilege.
• Starting Up a New Learning Space in Google Classroom – A video detailing my thoughts as I start up a new class in Google Classroom.
  

30 vs 1: Dating App in Real Life (5:48)

The world of online dating has its own discourse and social practices. If you’re not part of it…it can be hard to figure things out.

This week we tried to make sense of some of the online dating apps as an adolescent in the family is exploring them. This video helps make sense of the stark ways in which we eliminate the person from the equation.

Study: Attraction to social media is linked to a preference for social isolation

The “social” in social media may be a misnomer.

New research published in Psychological Reports provides evidence that the use of social media is related to a preference for solitary activities rather than social ones.

How Millenials Became the Burnout Generation

Anne Helen Petersen describing what she describes as the “base temperature” in her life…and those around her. She identifies this as being perpetually burnt out from working all of the time.

She posits that this is a shared, defining generational experience for all millennials. This is because she was raised with this narrative that people should be busy, and work all of the time to be successful. That has resulted in the current situation of paralysis for these young adults.

We’ve got the screen time debate all wrong. Let’s fix it.

For right or wrong, the big tech companies have seen which way the wind is blowing and responded to issues of digital dependence.

Experts suggest that we’ll never get good answers about the effects of screen time, unless we start asking better questions. That means being honest with ourselves about what we mean by “screen time” in the first place.

Let’s Make Twitter Great Again? – A Reflection on a Social Media of One

As 2018 started winding down, I slowly started to clean up and cull my social media presence. I shared much less on Facebook and tried to decide what role that would have in my life. I also have been steadily unfollowing people on my Twitter timeline. Finally, I restarted my Mastodon profile in a different instance to engage again in those spaces.

This is a larger, concerted effort to find value and joy in each of these spaces and practices.

This great post from Aaron Davis describes his thinking about interactions in these spaces…and making them the best that they can be.

Remembering the past through photos

For the holiday season, my Wife purchased a Google Assistant-powered display for our kitchen. We have a number of speakers in the house and love the way we can listen to music, and have dance parties while making dinner. The display adds a small monitor to our kitchen that displays a collection of our family photos.

I regularly think critically about these digital tools and their role in my life…and the life of my family unit. Reading this reflection by Doug Belshaw was meaningful for me as he reflects on the same experience.

how to do nothing

This post shares the text and slides from a keynote given by writer and artist Jenny Odell. The video of the keynote is available here.

As we consider how busy, wired, and possibly burnt out we get in our lives…perhaps we have the opportunity to do nothing. Odell focuses on the beauty and design in nothing.

As a side note, please click through to Odell’s website. It’s giving me some ideas of things I’d like to create on my own site.

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.

Leonard Bernstein

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