Posts tagged communication
Does the Internet turn us into Naysayers?
You’ve seen it before: Someone posts an angry (political) rant and it spreads like wildfire through Social Networks, the nervous system of the global wired community, flanked by equally angry comments, bursts of “righteous indignation” and lots of exclamation marks. If not, look at the comment-section of popular online newspapers, not to mention Youtube videos!…
A Brief Introduction to Language Change
The abbreviations OMG, FYI, and LOL are now officially part of the Oxford dictionary. Does that mean you should write academic papers with titles like “OMG, Hamlet was bi-polar” or start every sentence in your job application with FYI? Maybe not. But it’s important to note that people sometimes get very emotional or opinionated about those…
Here’s Why Online Relationships are Mostly Misunderstood
Recently, I read an article called “The Social Media Bubble” by Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab on the Harvard Business Review Blog. Its hypothesis: The Net doesn’t increase connectivity and social change. In fact, it leans towards degeneration: The quantity of “friends” is rising, while the quality of relationships goes down. In his…
When Distraction is the Norm
Yesterday I read about a little program called Freedom that forces you to disconnect from the Internet. You set a timer to the desired amount of “offline time” and then you’re unable to connect until the timer runs out or you reboot your computer. (This is supposed to make cheating more difficult) A question that…
The Internet is not a Mass Medium. Or is it?
The term “mass medium” was coined in the early 20th century and referred to magazines, newspapers, radio & television broadcasts. I remember the times when watching an MTV music video on color television fried every teenager’s excitement-circuits, slouched in front of the silverscreen, sucking up the newest trends and fashions through the straw that was…
How to Start from Nothing and Gain Everything
John Irving, the bestseller fiction author once said that everybody is equal in front of the white page. The moment you sit down to write, the page doesn’t know (or care) about your earlier successes or failures. You can not rest on your laurels. But also, if the critics tore you to shreds- you’re always…