Kid screentime

What the White House Needs to Know about Managing “Screen Time”

White House officials, like parents, are learning how limiting screen time can lead to better focus. But what does "screen time" really mean?
Minitel 1 computer

Thank Minitel for the French Election

Minitel gave the French a very specific experience of the digital realm, compared with other places where networked information arrived via the internet.
A man uses a futuristic touchscreen interface

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.