How can communities grieve in a time of social distancing? — I write this as we learn about yet another mass killing: 6 women of Asian descent in the United States, in a time of rising incidents of hate crimes against AAPI people in this country, in a time of a global pandemic that’s taken over 2.5 million lives, in a…

The desert teaches respect for nature. So does COVID-19. — In Spanish, the word for pandemic is pandemia. It sounds to me like academia or eudaimonia or even Portlandia: a state of mind, or a place, a world unto itself. This is a monthlong series on life in the pandemia, in response to Medium’s writing prompt. The desert, I’ve learned…

In Spanish, the word for pandemic is pandemia. It sounds to me like academia or eudaimonia or even Portlandia: a state of mind, or a place, a world unto itself. In the Land of Pandemia we find ourselves in, time moves differently. For me, the days move slowly, but the…

How video chat entered the uncanny valley of sociality in the pandemic — A new research paper from Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and his team looks at Zoom fatigue from a psychological perspective. …

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. …

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. …

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…

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…