On Sept. 13, the Redpath Museum hosted Derek Ruths, a McGill professor of computer science and director of the Centre for Social and Cultural Data Science, who addressed a pertinent problem of our technological world: The dark side of the internet. According to Ruths, the three most substantial issues with[Read More…]
Tag: Social Media
Data bank: Your Facebook account is worth more than your chequing account
Facebook has had a rough week. In the past seven days, four different lawsuits were filed against it, Sonos temporarily left its advertising program, and Elon Musk joined the #DeleteFacebook movement by removing SpaceX’s and Tesla’s profiles from the social media giant’s platform. With Facebook in the throws of a[Read More…]
Don’t show me the (read) receipts
“U r bombed me,” read the notification. My immediate reaction was, “What?” Several text bubbles later, I found myself engrossed in arduous digital warfare with this person, who believed I had ignored their earlier messages. I later learned that R-bombing means reading a message intended for you but not responding.[Read More…]
Wipe that smile off your face
Like the iconic little black dress, denim, and sliced bread, some things never go out of style. Others, like the big hair of the ‘70s or assless chaps, are less enduring. Looking back at photographs over the ages, we’re often horrified by past trends. For our generation to avoid such[Read More…]
Are millennials growing tired of clickbait?
Quality journalism needs financial resources to sustain itself. This simple fact is both inescapable and incredibly important, given the role that journalism plays in keeping governments accountable and civil discourse informed. Publications promote paid subscriptions as a source of funding, but, according to the American Press Institute, only 29 per[Read More…]
Pulling back the curtain: Access to sports superstars through social media
“I Dont wanna be here,” tweeted then-Phoenix Suns point guard Eric Bledsoe on Oct. 22. When he pressed send, Bledsoe had used a little over seven per cent of Twitter’s now 280-character limit to captivate the entire basketball world. Within a few hours, sports news sites picked up the tweet[Read More…]
Swipe right—for the right reasons
I recently re-downloaded the dating app Tinder. I was working on a difficult essay and, frustrated by my lack of success, found myself reactivating an old profile and swiping furiously. This was not the first time this had happened. When school becomes stressful and the pressures of McGill begin to[Read More…]
Make new friends and keep the old: How students stay in touch despite distance
University is an opportune time to make new friends—but sometimes, this comes at the expense of staying in touch with the old. Friendships naturally change over time, as distance and extracurriculars lead to new, and sometimes divergent, paths. It is already challenging for students to find time to catch up[Read More…]
Internet killed the local Torstar
Historians sometimes speak of a “usable past,” a common narrative about the events that brought us here and why we’re a “we” at all. This commonality is seen as essential to creating a sense of community or nationhood. Frankly, Canadians should be more concerned about maintaining a usable present. With[Read More…]
#MeToo comes at a cost
On Oct. 15, I scrolled past the first of the now viral “Me too” posts. Since then, I have tried to articulate my mixed feelings toward the “Me too” campaign in dozens of conversations with friends and fellow survivors. As much as I admire the thousands of women who have[Read More…]
