Daily Archives: January 14, 2020

Ten tech trends that shaped a decade – Pew Research Center

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  1. Social media sites have emerged as a go-to platform for connecting with others, finding news and engaging politically.
  2. Around the world and in the U.S., social media has become a key tool for activists, as well as those aligned against them.
  3. Smartphones have altered the way many Americans go online.
  4. Growth in mobile and social media use has sparked debates about the impact of screen time on America’s youth – and others.
  5. Data privacy and surveillance have become major concerns in the post-Snowden era.
  6. Tech platforms have given rise to a gig economy.
  7. Online harassment has become a fairly common feature of online life, both for teens and adults.
  8. Made-up news and misinformation has sparked growing concern.
  9. A majority of Americans see gender discrimination as a problem in the tech industry.
  10. Americans’ views about tech companies have turned far less positive in recent years.

No surprises, really. But useful to have empirical evidence.

See Source for details.

Linkblog

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Quote of the Day

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Twenty years ago we searched for islands of digital access in a sea of meatspace—homes, offices, internet cafes; now we seek equally scattered pockets of protection from that connectivity, and those pockets are increasingly the products of conscious design.

  • From a nice essay by Drew Austin, who leaves his phone in the kitchen when he goes to bed.

Realism about carbon capture

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From “Can we fix the Air?”, a sobering post by the Azimuth Project about the possibilities of absorbing CO2:

Totaling up some of the options I’ve listed, we could draw down 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by planting trees, 1.5 billion by better forest management, 3 billion by better agricultural practices, and up to 5.2 billion by biofuels with carbon capture. This adds up to over 10 billion tonnes per year. It’s not nearly enough to cancel the 37 billion tonnes we’re dumping into the air each year now. But combined with strenuous efforts to cut emissions, we might squeak by, and keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

We might. But the prospects of the world implementing the measures outlined in the post are, I think, zero.

In praise of bloggers

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From a “Blogging in an expert society” by Ken Smith:

At least there are certain mistakes that bloggers don’t often make:

  • They usually don’t pull rank.

  • They usually don’t insist that a problem can be solved only by a certain kind of expert or talked about only in one kind of language.

  • They tend to think that people’s experience has something to offer.

  • They assume that tradition or dogma should be challenged by people reflecting on their experiences.

  • They get riled up, but down deep they like to hear more voices, not fewer. They want their turn to speak, not the only turn. They get really impatient, but down deep they want democracy.

(HT to Dave Winer)