Overview: Psychology

what started as a cynical in-joke has become a bad habit, and an excuse for enabling abuse across the web... The fact that we joke about it documents an acceptance of a culture of abuse online. It helps normalize online harassment campaigns and treat the empowerment of abusers as inevitable, rather than solvable... we denigrate a form that use…

the first crux of Harcourt’s argument: The expository society exploits, rather than represses, our desires. The second ... government and commercial surveillance infrastructures have wholly merged.... Harcourt’s analysis hinges on desire: We want to participate, we are impelled to do so, and we like it. But it seems to me we are as much compelled …

The job of politics... finding common cause with people who aren’t like you. But current incentives seem to point in the opposite direction... I blame the internet ... You can’t take on inequality and injustice with a coalition of people who use the same slang, listen to the same music, and post the same emojis that you do.You have to be willing t…

When you put your life online, people think they know 80% of who you are. But internet personas are really only 20% true.... “It seemed like you were using personal experiences to gain approval from ‘the internet’  ... I wondered why the approval of your friends and family wasn’t enough. It felt like a distorted version of you"

In which I studiously avoid curating anything about 2016 or David Bowie.

Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling[1] 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahnema...: his early days working on cognitive biases, his work on prospect theory, and his later work on happiness.The book's central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System …

Social media platforms are built with all the insidious effectiveness of gambling machines, but it is possible to come out in front.

the idea that everyone is like us is called the “false-consensus bias.”... Online it means we can be blindsided by the opinions of our friends or, more broadly, America... morphs into a subconscious belief that we and our friends are the sane ones and that there’s a crazy “Other Side” ... that just doesn’t “get it,” ... not as intelligent as “us.”…

There is no public measure of your ego on Snapchat. No “54 likes” 13469 followers or “423 comments”. When your reader sees your post it doesn’t tell him or her the size of your ego.It’s a huge difference with LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Those three keep reminding you how important the person you’re reading is ... the Snapchat user doesn’t care …

Trump is what happens when social media becomes the platform for discourse.

the Internet now seems to be on constant boil... extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the Internet is terrible...social networks seem to be feeding a cycle of action and reaction. In just about every news event, the Internet’s reaction to the situation becomes a follow-on part of the story, so that …

people today are inundated with more bullshit now than ever before... We presented approximately 800 participants across four studies with statements ranging from the mundane to the meaningful. We included some bullshit too... People who were more religious, more likely to believe in the paranormal, and more accepting of alternative medicine were…

not much drives traffic as effectively as stories that vindicate and/or inflame the biases of their readers... specifically tries to invent stories that will provoke strong reactions in middle-aged conservatives. They share a lot on Facebook... they’re the ideal audience. institutional distrust and cognitive bias are so strong that the people who…

Being surrounded with ready-made solutions to problems can inhibit our creative growth... Given a problem with scarce resources, the human mind will twist and mull until it has a solution. This creativity is probably our species most important feature.

What determines whether the ideas we generate are truly creative? Recent research of ours finds that one common factor often gets in the way: we tend to undervalue the benefits of persistence.

Over 40 new resources ... some great longreads to enjoy as the nights grow long, the productivity tips you’ll need to find the time to read them, and a free set of steak knives. The Christmas season, after all, is almost upon us.

Imagine taking a team of highly creative people and sticking them in sterile, lowest-cost-per-square-foot spaces, and expecting them to achieve the best work of their lives?... we've been focussing heavily on the design of our work spaces... Chaining people to their desks (or cubicles) is a sure-fire way to kill great ideas and creativity. -…

The brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates a “compulsion loop”... we need more and more to get the same effect. Endless access to new information also easily overloads our working memory. When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to long-term memory significantly deteriorates.…

Making ‘a net positive contribution to people’s lives’ doesn’t necessarily satisfy investors... it’s possible to imagine regulation that actually expands users’ choices. It doesn’t need to be especially invasive or dramatic, and it would be designed to give users more control over their experiences online... Here are three things we could do…

NYTimes' “verified commenters.”... few hundred people whose comments are posted without moderation can end up dominating the reader commenting system... causes quite understandable resentment among thousands of others...Because they go up first, their comments are almost guaranteed to get the most exposure, “and hence rise to the top and be seen …

We are fascinated with Essena O’Neill because she reveals things we could live our whole lives hiding from. In the span of a few years, she rocketed into Instagram fame, made hundreds of thousands of dollars and then decided to chase a life of meaning... We have always sold the dream and faked it to our neighbors. We’re just upset that now the …

showing people what’s going on is much more important than being present in that moment ... What you fail to understand, what you’ve never thought about understanding is why you do it... Every stupid video is a waste of 3 minutes you’ll never get back, and every picture is there to show the 1% of your life where you can smile for the camera…

I’ve been thinking about the kinds of mistakes we make when pursuing happiness. I’ve been wondering whether the biggest mistake might be seeing happiness as something we should be aiming for at all. - Everything you think you know about happiness is wrong - Quartz

In some jobs, being in touch with emotions is essential. In others, it seems to be a detriment. And like any skill, being able to read people can be used for good or evil... In emerging research ... when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was less likely to scrutinize the message and remembered less of the conte…

There are a number of effective strategies for overcoming the harm caused by a personal attack on social media. And your response can be a democratic one that includes fighting bad speech with more (good) speech. If someone’s attacked you on social media, here are four steps for responding: - How to handle personal attacks on social media | …

Huge longform exposé - don't know whether to be impressed, amused or horrified: "... what did it mean for an online retailer with annual sales of more than $1 billion, that fills 280,000 orders per week, to be “self-organized”?... Holacracy is ... just one example of a growing movement... that seeks to apply insights derived from evolutionar…

Yes. The Cult committee. That’s what the European Parliament calls their Committee on Culture and Education. - Yes, There IS EU Propaganda In Schools, And It’s Worse Than You Think

If understanding the reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories makes the authorities better communicators, or reveals unknown lines of questioning or thought, that is a gain, not a loss. - It’s the failure to admit failure that fuels conspiracy theories | openDemocracy

what many of these movements’ followers share is the desire not just to disagree with their opponents, but to delegitimize, dehumanize, and ostracize those with whom they disagree... It is not their policies that these new populists share, but their emphasis on a new kind of identity politics... What would previously have been isolated cases o…

You have nothing to fear but fear itself. Fear, and algorithms... It has never been easier for designers and non-designers to create great websites that even five years ago would have cost a fortune to build... design is dead. There is more to design than the pixel-pushing of visual design... The real designers, problem solvers... able to co…