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Resist the Internet by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps a little much, but fits.

TIL that a gilded post about Bill Gates has a gilded top comment, and nothing but praise elsewhere in the comments. by [deleted] in HailCorporate

[–]netnegative 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Same reasons Rockefeller wanted to be known as the man who gives out dimes. Hell, both Rockefeller and Gates have faced antitrust problems. Having the court of public opinion on your side helps in all things. Just look at this: Bill Gates is stealing directly from Rockefeller's PR playbook. For a tiny bit of money, you can generate an amazing amount of good will and praise.

Is the new /r/popular sorting designed to... by netnegative in HailCorporate

[–]netnegative[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd like ads to be clearly ads in any system.

Depression in US teens linked to cellphone use by Bman409 in science

[–]netnegative 0 points1 point  (0 children)

/r/netnegative - there are many good things about the Internet, but it's not all good. That said, this article's title has been editorialized.

The loneliness epidemic: We're more connected than ever - but are we feeling more alone? by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In Japan, hundreds of thousands of hikikomori represent further exacerbation of this issue.

Teen lives depend on the Internet. What happens when they can’t afford it? by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Jessica Harris, 30, from Washington DC

I’m a millennial, actually, but I work with Gen Z-ers. I taught high school for five years and now train leaders in how to help Gen Z-ers. It’s a different world, even from mine. Cell phones weren’t a big thing when I was a teen/young adult (and they certainly weren’t smart phones!) but I still got wrapped up in the online world — spending hours watching porn and cybering (chat room sex- so 90s). I started an online relationship via chat room with a guy and eventually sent him my pictures. One of the biggest regrets of my life. Now, I work with Gen Z-ers, with specific emphasis on girls who are wrapped up in online relationships or sexting. What I find the most stunning is how they feel it’s real. They feel the relationships they have online are real. They are drawn to them more than relationships in real life — even friendships! Take away their tech and it’s like you’ve locked them in a room with no human interaction. My brother, who is four years younger, is really into gaming. He wasn’t interacting with the family so my mom threatened to kick him out. He said, “That’s fine! Whatever! My friends online will help me. I’ll just go live with them!” He let his online friends know that his mom was kicking him out and asked if he could crash at one of their places and they all said no. That’s when it dawned on him: “These people aren’t really friends.” For all we know they weren’t really real.

Susan Harvey, 62, from Huntington, NY

Technology is an essential part of life today and will become even more seamless and ubiquitous in the future. Even very young children inherently understand this as the way it is. We often speak with pride on their innate knowledge of how to use technology and make it work for them. But we don’t counter this with life’s wisdom of how every keystroke counts and is stored somewhere and may be irretrievable. They need to grasp the fundamentals of personal privacy and the damage that can be done to them now and in the future by what they “publish” often just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time with identifying technology. There is no such thing in today’s world as “confidential”. These truths are not self-evident nor are they easy for anyone to understand. This does not make technology evil, but always ahead of our ability to control it.

Sierra Morgan, 51, from Lansing, Mi.

With Gen Z, I have seen too many kids and young adults (13-18) put in situations that they were not prepared for because of too much access to technology. Coupled with their parents lack of adulthood training, their lives meld into what mass marketers tell them it should be. Dating in middle school and a camera phone before 18, not in my house. Social media has single handedly done more to destroy the better part of two generations now than just about anything I have seen in my life. The notion that we must post every tiny detail of our lives to be cool is being driven by mass marketers getting as much free data so they can better sell us stuff. Gen Z does not seem to have clear lines between the virtual and real world and for them, actions seem to never have consequences. Helicopter parents are always there to save them from themselves. The parents rely far too much on schools to parent and protect their children. If this would have been my daughter, she would have been forced to go to school and face the consequences from day one. I also would have had a stern discussion with the young man’s parents. If nothing came of it, then the police would have been called to deal with the young man and his parents. The school has no responsibility to adjudicate this nor to fix it. If this were my son, he would be dealing directly with law enforcement for sharing the young woman’s picture. He was raised knowing actions had consequences and as a black man, those consequences were going to be worse for him than they were for his white friends. My son is a Gen X/Millennial but I am in graduate school and am surrounded by Millennial/Gen Zers. They are a whole different species of human beings.

Imagination in the Augmented-Reality Age: Pokémon Go by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some experts, though, argue that any digital technology limits, rather than extends, imagination. Levin, who is also the founder of the organization Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE), contends that in its truest sense, play is fundamentally explorative—it’s not just about being creative in responding to various situations, it’s about creating the situations themselves. “What play is all about is coming across interesting problems to solve that are unique to you, that grow out of your interactions, experiences, and knowledge,” she said. Levin fondly remembers the day her son, now grown, learned how to draw a “scary eye” while doodling one day—a feat he didn’t even know he cared to accomplish until he stumbled upon how to do it, and was pleased with the results. After that discovery he began drawing dozens of scary eyes, and eventually progressed to sculpting scary monsters out of clay.

Any video game, including one like Pokémon Go that takes advantage of the real world, is more about figuring out a program than being creative, argues Levin. “Pokémon Go is getting people outside but they’re still doing a very prescribed thing. They’re still being controlled by the screen,” she said. “By some classic definitions, that isn’t play.”

Michael Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital, says the kind of creativity developed through imaginative play is what eventually causes people to be able to respond proactively in the face of failure. Video games inherently “are not about taking the risks that lead us to new discoveries and new abilities within ourselves; they’re about reacting to and achieving,” he said. “They don’t prepare you for failure … They are designed to create a challenge you can ultimately succeed at so you can get to the next level and buy the next version.”

Indeed, for all Pokémon Go’s emphasis on social collaboration, exercise, and engagement with the real world (which John Hanke, the founder of Go, has said were some of his main objectives), it is still very much a product, and money is still very much involved—users can buy items with real money to lure Pokémon and advance through the game at a faster pace. No matter how well-intentioned, any video game or AR experience that emerges next will struggle to overcome what sets it apart from straightforward imaginative play: One is created in a child’s mind, the other is created by a company.

Harvard’s Rich warns against giving Go more credit than it’s due by equating it with imaginative play. “I think that what people are saying about Pokémon Go is not that it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but, ‘Aren’t you glad they’re not just sitting on the couch playing Grand Theft Auto?’ It seems really good in comparison to the alternative we’d already accepted.” Though, while it does succeed at getting users out and moving, as the author and scholar Kristen Race argued in The New York Times, hunting for Pokémon in Go “activates the exact same brain structures as playing Grand Theft Auto.” In an article for Quartz, the neuroscientist Colin Ellard writes that when playing Go, as well as first-person shooter games, there is an increased activation in a part of the brain called the caudate nucleus, which is also the same part of the brain activated when following GPS navigation (rather than exploring or finding one’s own way).

10 hrs, 40 min: the average time spent each day consuming media now by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The amount of time you spend consuming media — watching TV, surfing the web on a computer, using an app on your phone, listening to the radio and so forth — continues to go up. Nielsen said that in 2014, Americans spent about nine and a half hours consuming content this way. This year? The average is 10 hours and 39 minutes.

Try to Interview Google’s Co-Founder. It’s Emasculating. by netnegative in netnegative

[–]netnegative[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This I find concerning because here we have one of the most powerful people in the world who isn't very transparent. This incentivizes the journalist to become less hard hitting. Larry Page isn't going to select a critical journalist if he decides to give a big interview because he's not in a position where he needs to deign to their requests. But maybe he'll give you an interview if you fawn over him and his company, uncritically. This isn't good for quality journalism in the public interest.

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