Posts tagged as:

facebook

5 life problems created by Facebook — and 1 solution

The launch of Facebook Places, which lets people “check in” to geographic locations the way they can with FourSquare, Yelp or Gowalla, has provoked a fresh round of reflection on how Facebook affects our lives and relationships. Here are 5 problems that Facebook could cause for you — and not all of them are related [...]

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Patrolling the boundaries in social networking

Rob Jewitt, a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Sunderland, writes about the university’s recently introduced social networking site for students. Embedded in his description of the site’s features are some interesting reflections on the kinds of challenges universities face in the social media era: Many staff find it uncomfortable befriending students on social [...]

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Your therapist’s Facebook page could be harming your mental health

I’ve been part of many recent conversations about whether Facebook is harmful to our mental health — and perhaps a new source of business for psychotherapists. Now I’ve discovered the other side of the coin: a debate about whether therapists’ use of social media is good or bad for their patients. Here’s how Denis Lane, [...]

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The pajama test: An open letter to my Facebook “friends”

Dear Facebook “friend”, You may have noticed that you’re hearing from me less, and when you do, it’s mostly about my husband or my shoes or how I feel when someone eats the last brownie. Maybe you’re happy that your news feed isn’t full of my Twitter updates anymore (I got rid of my Twitter-to-Facebook [...]

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The virtues of losing touch

Google Buzz got slammed for prepopulating its users’ friends lists based on their most frequent email correspondents. Facebook has taken heat for privacy settings that default to a high level of sharing. So what’s the big deal about sharing stuff with people you know already? RL Shrag has a fantastic analogy that makes the whole [...]

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5 solutions for coping with social media

Read Gillian Shaw’s story about my social media methodology in the Vancouver Sun. Is social media something you have to cope with? Or is social media something that can help you cope? In my talk today at the Northern Voice blogging conference, I made my best case for social media as a coping mechanism. Yes, [...]

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Do social networks make birthdays better?

Thumbnail image for Do social networks make birthdays better?

Today is my 39th birthday. Among other things this means I’ve now spent 2/3 of my life online, since we got our first computer when I was 13. (Apparently it also means that a year from now I’ll be forty, which all my fortysomething women friends tell me will be the dawn of a new [...]

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The meaning of friendship, on- and offline

This weekend was the first time I found myself on the receiving end of Facebook’s new and  more nuanced privacy settings. An old friend popped up in the Facebook sidebar, which rotates an assortment of different people in your friend list. On a whim, I clicked her picture, so I could catch up on her latest news. Instead [...]

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Feature set for a social media scrapbook

Last week I wrote about the non-existent web application that is currently at the top of my wishlist: a social media scrapbooking service. But I have looked into a bunch of photobook and blogging services, and nothing quite fits the bill. And after a bunch of “have you tried…” conversations, I realize I need to [...]

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Seven ways to break the habit of compulsive e-mail and Twitter check-ins

I’ve lost too much of the present to my constant need to check the iPhone. Here are seven practices that are helping me break free of my compulsion.

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Twitter quickstart: Your first 21 tweets

If you need to stake a claim to your Twitter identity, but you don’t know what to tweet about, here’s an easy way to get your Tweeting underway. You don’t need to look like the world’s most longstanding Twitterer (after all, Oprah just started tweeting last week!), but an empty Twitter feed is just, well, a little forlorn.So I’ve taken the liberty of writing your first 21 tweets for you.

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