What Congress Should Know About the Internet
Facebook's privacy and ad preferences settings are a privacy placebo: they trick us into feeling a little better, but they don't treat the underlying disease.
Why Are Video Games so Great?
An anthropologist investigating one group of committed gamers found people attracted not to realism, but to deeply engaging cooperative projects.
Why Deleting Facebook isn’t the Answer to Data-Driven Targeting
We have to become smarter news and advertising consumers, and learn to resist the unceasing stream of slanted messages that come our way.
The Evolution of the Microscope
The first compound microscopes date to 1590, but it was the Dutch Antony Van Leeuwenhoek in the mid-seventeenth century who first used them to make discoveries.
How YouTube Has Changed Our Concept of Celebrity
When YouTube entered the scene in 2005, it made sharing amateur entertainment both instantaneous and global.
To Save Congress, Restore Local News
Since Donald Trump was elected, national news stories dominate our attention and our social media feeds—at the expense of local news.
What Do Personality Quizzes Really Tell You?
Do personality quizzes help solidify one's sense of self? Or is there something limiting in having one's identity summed up so neatly?
What Parkland Tells us About Teens and Social Media
While America’s parents have been wringing their hands over online safety, kids have steadily taken to social media, smartphones, and other digitally-enabled technologies to seek and promote their physical safety.
The San Zeno Astrolabe Tracked Time by the Stars
The astrolabe was a revolutionary tool for calculating celestial positions and local time. The device's design dates back to Islamic antiquity.
Under Victorian Microscopes, an Enchanted World
When it came time to describe what they saw under microscopes, Victorians couldn’t help but perceive a real-life fairyland.