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Alexandra Samuel

Alexandra Samuel

Alexandra Samuel is a technology writer, researcher and speaker. She is the author of Work Smarter with Social Media (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015), and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal. Alex holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and a B.A. from Oberlin College. You can find her on Twitter as @awsamuel and on her own site, alexandrasamuel.com.

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A man uses a futuristic touchscreen interface
The Digital Voyage

How Early Adopters Take Charge of Their Tech

Being an early adopter isn't about how quickly you snap up the latest smartphone. We can all be early adopters in the more meaningful sense of tech mastery.
spam emails
The Digital Voyage

Why Can’t We End Spam? Ask An Economist.

Law enforcement recently took out a bot network capable of sending 1.5 billion spam emails a day. So what are the economic incentives—and costs—of spam?
internet privacy data
The Digital Voyage

Are Your Feelings Getting In the Way Of Your Online Privacy?

Privacy activists have been sounding alarms over the news that ISPs will now be able to sell data on their customers’ web browsing and app usage.
Dallas JR
The Digital Voyage

Did the Internet Kill the TV Cliffhanger?

The internet may have changed the concept of the television cliffhanger, but is it possible that knowing the ending of something increases our enjoyment?
Acrobats
The Digital Voyage

Who Can You Trust Online?

Who can you trust online? It’s a question that comes up constantly in our digital lives, and it’s also a subject of great fascination to internet scholars.
Alan Emtage
The Digital Voyage

Meet Alan Emtage, the Black Technologist Who Invented ARCHIE, the First Internet Search Engine

Internet search has had a profound impact on our own internal makeup—on how we learn, and how we think.
Marshmallows
The Digital Voyage

What’s So Bad About Instant Gratification?

The internet is making us impatient. But is that actually such a bad thing? Our tech columnist takes a look.
Trump Twitter unfollow button
The Digital Voyage

How Trump’s Twitter Presidency Hijacked Hopes For E-Democracy

The first live-tweeting presidency resembles the broadcast-era version of democracy more than the kind of democracy the internet was supposed to enable.
Multi-tasking woman
The Digital Voyage

How the Internet Makes Women’s Work Visible

When I left my fancy corporate job so that I’d have the flexibility to support my autistic son, I was afraid I’d disappear.
New Year / Felt tip pen
The Digital Voyage

Freeing Your New Year’s Resolutions from “False Hope Syndrome”

We have migrated the New Year’s resolution onto the Internet, without stopping to ask how the digital context changes its power or impact.
woman on laptop
The Digital Voyage

Full Disclosure: Why We Say Too Much When We Write Online

The internet is an emotional vampire. Scroll through your latest social network updates—or the headlines on Medium and ...
New York Journal 1898
The Digital Voyage

To Fix Fake News, Look To Yellow Journalism

Fake news has plenty of precedents in the history of mass media, and particularly, in the history of American journalism.
young woman distressed at a laptop
The Digital Voyage

Navigating Traumatic Events Online

We need to approach our online conversations with an awareness of the different levels of risk and vulnerability each of us bring.
chalkboard
The Digital Voyage

How To Wrap Your Head Around Even The Most Complex Subjects

A 2x2 matrix is a great way of mapping just about any idea, research topic, or set of observations on two dimensions.
Mahjong players
The Digital Voyage

Making Sense of Social Gaming

What do social gaming habits reveal about the lives of those playing?
Baby with laptop
The Digital Voyage

Inventing Rituals for the Digital World

How do we recognize our digital milestones?
Internet trolls
The Digital Voyage

How To Live With Internet Trolls

We need to start thinking about how to live with internet trolls even while we look for ways to reduce or eliminating trolling. 
First United States Labor Day Parade 1882, Union Square
The Digital Voyage

A Labor Day Look at the Future of Work

If computers endanger the hard-won gains of the labor movement, do we need a new way of addressing tech-driven income inequality?
Students on tablets
The Digital Voyage

6 Digital Work Habits Every Student (and Adult) Needs

These digital study habits are relatively simple and sustainable, and work for students and parents alike.
Victorian woman reading
The Digital Voyage

A Novel Defense of the Internet

Novel reading was once regarded as an idle occupation, just as Internet use is now.
Pokemon Gym at the peak of Zion Observation Point
The Digital Voyage

Mapping the Future with Pokémon Go

Is Pokémon Go is preparing us for a world without cartography?
online stress
The Digital Voyage

Self-Regulation in a Stressed-Out, Online World

Do our computers, gadgets and online activities necessarily cause stress—or is the internet a place where we can find ways to relieve our stress?
Close-up of a gold pendant in the shape of the "@" symbol
The Digital Voyage

How To Live With Your Digital Doppelgängers

Digital Doppelgängers may share your name, but you can still claim your own digital identity.
A student working on a laptop computer
The Digital Voyage

Embracing Your Inner Cyborg

Cyborgs might be closer in the future than you think.
Diagram outlining how menstrual cycles connect to computer networks
The Digital Voyage

Why the Future of the Internet May Depend on the History of Abortion

Our columnist’s take on the future of the Internet and the importance of grassroots networks.

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