#ISOJ Keynote: Can Social Media Help Us Create A More Informed Public? Here’s the transcript of a talk I gave at the International Symposium for Online Journalists in Austin, Texas last Friday. We Messed Up Now as many of you know, I’m usually I’m not at a loss for words. But I really struggled to decide what to talk about today, especially in the wake of the attack this week on my hometown of Boston. Some of my fondest memories of the city are of that magical Monday, once a year each April, when everyone would line the streets and cheer on one stranger after another – encouraging them to succeed in accomplishing a little magic of their own.
I had originally planned to cover the role of social media in our coverage of Newtown today. But the course the events in Boston have led me – and perhaps many of us here, I suppose – to broaden what we truly need to talk about here at ISOJ. So I’d like to discuss something that both Newton and Boston have in common, beyond the obvious horror and needless loss: We messed up. Kicking into High Gear for Breaking News Related. Stanford study concludes peers not really happier. After scrolling through your Facebook news feed, it may seem as if everyone but you is leading a happy, exciting life. Your friends' lives are filled with nonstop weekend barbecues, laughs over happy hour and cute kids who say the darnedest things. Compared with yours, their lives are blissful. Think again. A recent Stanford psychology study concludes that people chronically overestimate how happy their peers are, and this misperception leads to feelings of loneliness.
Stanford psychology Professor Benoit Monin explains why he thinks these misconceptions happen, and what we can do to improve our own levels of happiness. Q:Why do people overestimate other's positive emotions and underestimate the negative ones? A: Our research shows that three reasons contribute to this illusion: -- For the same reason, after the fact, people talk about their highs (e.g., fun party last night) more than they talk about their lows (e.g., boring night watching TV). -- Pay more attention to silent majorities. How to write letters, 100 diagrams that changed the world, the best music books of 2012, and more. Hey <<Name>>! If you missed last week's edition – how to avoid work and do what you love, the best history books of 2012, and more – you can catch up right here.
And if you're enjoying this, please consider supporting with a modest donation. 100 Diagrams That Changed the World A visual history of human sensemaking, from cave paintings to the world wide web. But most noteworthy of all is the way in which these diagrams bespeak an essential part of culture – the awareness that everything builds on what came before, that creativity is combinatorial, and that the most radical innovations harness the cross-pollination of disciplines. Christianson writes in the introduction: It appears that no great diagram is solely authored by its creator. The Ptolemaic System (Claudus Ptolemy, c. This 1568 illuminated illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric system, 'Figura dos Corpos Celestes' (Four Heavenly Bodies), is by the Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velbo.
How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact On Our Culture [OPINION] This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication. Josh Rose is the EVP, digital creative director of ad agency Deutsch LA, who -- when time permits -- moonlights as a photographer. Follow him at @joshrose. Two events today, although worlds apart, seem inextricably tied together. And the bond between them is as human as it is electronic.
First, on my way to go sit down and read the newspaper at my coffee shop, I got a message from my 10-year-old son, just saying good morning and letting me know he was going to a birthday party today. The amount of calming satisfaction it gives me to be able to communicate with him through technology is undeniably palpable and human. I guess one man’s TMI is another man’s treasure. Moments later, I sat down and opened the paper. The Paradox of Online Closeness I recently asked the question to my Facebook friends: “Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare … is all this making you feel closer to people or farther away?” How to Properly Research Online (and Not Embarrass Yourself with the Results) Warning: if you are going to argue a point about politics, medicine, animal care, or gun control, then you better take the time to make your argument legit.
Spending 10 seconds with Google and copy-pasting wikipedia links doesn't cut it. The standard for an intelligent argument is Legitimate research is called RE-search for a reason: patient repetition and careful filtering is what will win the day. There are over 86 billion web pages published, and most of those pages are not worth quoting.
To successfully sift it all, you must use consistent and reliable filtering methods. You will need patience to see the full breadth of writing on any single topic. If you are a student, or if you are seeking serious medical, professional, or historical information, definitely heed these 8 suggested steps to researching online: Net neutrality and the value of the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Verizon filed its second suit against the network neutrality laws submitted last December by the Federal Communications Commission, sparking what is certain to be more debate over who has what rights to regulate the content on the Internet. Meanwhile a policy paper out today suggests the Internet so far delivers between $4,155 and $5,686 in economic value to each consumer: a number that may decline or stagnate if net neutrality disappears.
Assigning value to the web A study by the Institute of Policy and Integrity at New York University has crunched some numbers and determined that the combination of network infrastructure and content that comprise the Internet offers significant economic value to consumers. The results suggest that the consumer surplus generated by the Internet is very large. How much is the web worth to you?
Of course this number is debatable, as are many number associated with the economics of broadband and the web. About. Hey there. My name is Maria Popova and I’m a reader, writer, interestingness hunter-gatherer, and curious mind at large. I’ve previously written for Wired UK, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, among others, and am an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.
Maria Popova. Photograph by Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times Brain Pickings is my one-woman labor of love — a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why. Founded in 2006 as a weekly email that went out to seven friends and eventually brought online, the site was included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive in 2012. Here’s a little bit about my seven most important learnings from the journey so far. I think of it as LEGOs — if the bricks we have are of only one shape, size, and color, we can build things, but there’s a limit to how imaginative and interesting they will be. Please enjoy. Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. Content Curators Are The New Superheros Of The Web. Yesterday, the ever-churning machine that is the Internet pumped out more unfiltered digital data. Yesterday, 250 million photos were uploaded to Facebook, 864,000 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube, and 294 BILLION emails were sent.
And that's not counting all the check-ins, friend requests, Yelp reviews and Amazon posts, and pins on Pintrest. The volume of information being created is growing faster than your software is able to sort it out. As a result, you're often unable to determine the difference between a fake LinkedIn friend request, and a picture from your best friend in college of his new baby. What's happened is the web has gotten better at making data. While devices struggle to separate spam from friends, critical information from nonsense, and signal from noise, the amount of data coming at us is increasingly mind-boggling. In 2010 we frolicked, Googled, waded, and drowned in 1.2 zettabytes of digital bits and bytes. 1. How will curation evolve?