Media accounting 101: appholes and contracts

I enjoyed this long essay from Craig Mod on a handful of related topics. Most importantly, he touches on how habits define our identity and why most people would not want to be described as social media addicts. But readers? Yes, very much yes please. > We’re amicable to calling ourselves readers for the same reason we want to identify as rock climbers or marathon runners or exceptional parents or selfless children or humanitarians or folks who’ve written thoughtful and considered books — becau…

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Digital minimalism and God (or, is social media undermining religion?)

If you follow Cal Newport’s blog, you’ll know he writes often about the trends in our culture and the shift towards all things shallow. In this post, he addresses a chief concern of mine. He shares an example from the life of Martin Luther King Jr’s life to get to his point: > I’m bringing this all up because it provides background for a surprising claim that’s been growing online in recent years, and which seems self-evidently worthy of unpacking: social media might be accidentally undermining…

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Beyond #DeleteFacebook: more thoughts on embracing the social internet over social media

You’ve likely seen this article already, but it’s worth revisiting a few times. I enjoyed Cal Newport’s comparison of the social internet and social media [http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/03/20/on-social-media-and-its-discontents/], but this specific post hit home more for me. Not only does he offer some practical ways to embrace the social internet, but one of those tips is dear to me: own your own domain. He sums it up well: > I can tell you from experience that this approach is harder than…

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The Twitter web interface

Things change as you get older. I've been using Twitter for over 7 years now (7!) and my love for the service is the same. I don't put a lot of value in how the company is run, but the service itself has thankfully remained the same over the years. The below was written originally for my weekly newsletter. Enjoy items like this each week for less than one coffee [https://chrisbowler.memberful.com/orders/new?plan=63] a month. And up until very recently, I considered Tweetbot to be the ultimate…

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Caring for craft

If a lovely photograph is taken in the forest, but no one is there to appreciate it, is it still lovely? I would argue yes. Good work, work that is the result of careful, painstaking time and attention, is good whether or not it's enjoyed by others. But it seems that the activity we partake of online has trained us to seek after the Fave/Star/Like more than is necessary. Shawn Blanc wrote about his photography workflows [http://shawnblanc.net/2013/07/flickr-and-instagram/] and how the different…

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Different measures of success

The ability to share information and experiences is one of the pillars the Internet was built upon upon. But this ability also leads to a misleading perception at times. I recently had lunch with a new acquaintance, Justin Jackson [http://twitter.com/mijustin]. Our streams overlap somewhat, in terms of who we follow on Twitter. It was a comment that Justin made that reinforced for me the fact that how we measure success is important. We discussed a mutual acquaintance, someone who has achieved…

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Where the people are

For anyone who's followed along here over the years, you'll know that yours truly does not have much confidence or trust for services that are free. Twitter most definitely falls into the category of services where I believe the user is the currency, not the customer. Yet, although I've transitioned away from other services like Google for my Internet based tools, I've had a hard time doing the same for Twitter. Why? Because the people are still there. People over ideals? I've backed App.net (…

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The race is on

There are times when the changes that the Internet has wrought in my life over the past 10-12 years simply amaze me. One of those areas can be simply summed up as content. It's a lump of items that can be hard to define, but I believe content is applicable. Consider everything the Internet brings us these days. News and events. Sports. Entertainment. Knowledge and research, information (and speculation) on a subject of interest. All of these come mixed together now on one medium. Often from the…

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