Or, how video chat entered the uncanny valley of sociality in the pandemic
There’s a new research paper out from Professor Jeremy Bailenson and team at Stanford, who looked at Zoom fatigue from a psychological perspective. They narrowed it down to four main factors: (1) excessive eye contact, (2) seeing oneself on video constantly, (3) reduction of mobility (because of a need to stay in the frame) and (4) cognitive load.
Most intriguing is what he and his colleagues call the ZEF Scale, or Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale, which includes questions like “How irritated do your eyes feel after videoconferencing?” and “How much do you tend to avoid social situations after videoconferencing?”…
Or, why the social internet has become our best third place option during the pandemic
It started as an odd experiment early in the days of Clubhouse, which in pandemic time means August, when the app was still in Testflight mode. My friend Jennifer 8. Lee set up a room called “Silent Meditation,” set her mic to mute, and people piled in. In an app designed explicitly around talking, no one talked.
Because there’s no video on Clubhouse, it’s unclear who was actually meditating. But maybe that’s not the point. The point was that we were together.
Back in September, I shared a few thoughts on Clubhouse, landing on the point that the app fills…
From Rihanna to Aung San Suu Kyi, news of internet shutdowns has been making the rounds lately. Access Now, a non-profit that focuses on digital rights around the world, documented 213 incidents of shutdowns in 2019 alone. As the report detailed, these shutdowns rarely come out of nowhere. Indeed, they are most often justified as a content moderation decision:
While the internet enables the fulfillment of many human rights, there is a growing concern about the role it plays in facilitating or spreading misinformation and incendiary content. …
How Trauma-Informed Journalism Can Help Us Navigate These Times
We live in times of breaking news that breaks the heart, when that which breaks is not just world events, but us, living and navigating a painful world.
As we near the year’s anniversary of the declaration of a global pandemic, I’ve been thinking a lot about what, exactly, has changed in the past year, including in the world of journalism. One thing I started noticing last year when listening to the NPR is the number of times the radio station openly references anxiety and calm in their broadcasts and tries to help soothe listeners as much as inform them.
Three Reasons for Optimism and Three Reasons for Pessimism
Some folks have been asking me for my opinion on the recent decision to deplatform Donald Trump from major social media platforms. As this is a newsletter about the future, let’s take a look at some potential long-term implications.
My thoughts are still forming, but here are three reasons for pessimism and three for optimism that guide my thinking.
Three Reasons for Pessimism
We live in times of great heartbreak, times of great suffering. The fallacy we brought to2021 was that it might be better, might get easier, but what we’re learning is that the legacy of 2020 remains. If each year feels more difficult, each day still brings opportunities for joy, and each day teaches us that the only way past these times is through them.
I am reminded of the writing of Rabbi Steven Leder, from the book More Beautiful Than Before:
This man then pointed something out to me that I had never thought about before. He pointed out that…
As we close out 2020, here’s a simple tool for reflecting on what’s to come
It’s now been one year since Dr. Li Wenliang warned the world of the respiratory disease that would change the world, eventually taking his life in the process. As we think about a decade hence, it’s worth considering the potential ripple effects of what we’re seeing now.
During times of crisis, it helps to look at three factors: the past and how it’s shaping us, the present conditions and reality, and what’s likely to come. This is particularly tricky with COVID-19. One thing worth noting, for instance, is the pandemic’s second order effects. In other words, there’s what the pandemic…
A Substack newsletter about global media and technology futures
I’m pleased to introduce Yellow Canary Land 🐤 (yes, the emoji is part of the title), a Substack newsletter about global media and technology futures. Like the proverbial canary in a coal mine, a yellow canary event is like a flashing warning sign for more danger ahead. It is a signal that is itself insightful, but to an expert is doubly so because of the conditions it reveals.
Why subscribe? I’ve spent the better part of a decade with my ears to the ground on what’s coming for technology, and much of what I wrote about early on continues to…
Meditation runs counter to the demands of an attention economy. But it’s a critical skill for these times.
We’re living in a time of tremendous uncertainty. From the COVID-19 pandemic and now to the results of the US election, 2020 has been a lesson in embracing that which isn’t known and living with that feeling for weeks and months on end.
In the world of fact-checking, I’ve been thinking about the concept of midinformation, or informational ambiguity based on scant or conflicting evidence, often about emerging scientific knowledge. …
In my new article for Columbia Journalism Review, I look at some of the challenges and opportunities.
I have a new article out in Columbia Journalism Review that explores some unfortunate patterns I’ve seen in technology coverage lately as many people writing about tech — already a difficult beat — turn their eye toward China, perhaps for the first time:
Through Western eyes, The Economist points out, China is often seen as an “Otherland that is as much an idea as a place on the map.” This orientation seeps into tech journalism. …
an xiao mina
author and technologist. words and commentary in ny times, bbc, atlantic, hyperallergic, etc. meedan. opinions my own.
